
.Oass E 



Hook 









A 

BIOGRAPHY 



OF 



JAMES A. GARFIELD 



Late President of the United States, 



BY 



BENSON J. LOSSING, LL.D., 

AFTHOB OF "PICTORIAL FIELD BOOK OF THE BKVOLOTION ;" " PICTORIAL FIELD BOOX OF 

THE WAB OF 1812;" "riCTOBIAL FIELD BOOK OF THE CIVIL WiB IN AMEBIC.*.; " 

"iLLUSTBATED HIHTOBY OF THE UNITED STATES;" " ODB COUNTBY ;" 

"MOUNT VEBNON, THE HOME OF WASHINGTON ;" 

"EMINENT AMEBICAN8;" ETC., ETC. 



PORTRAIT ON STEEL, 



FORTY-EIGHT FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS. 



NEW YORK: 

HENRY S. GOODSPEED & CO., 

CHICAGO, ILL. CINCINNATI, O. 






COPYRIGHT, J882, BY 

A. E. GOODSPEED. 



i" THE 

Uonng ifitiwis of (Pur (foimtrj), 

THIS UOSRAPBT Of I 

GREAT EXEMPLAR 

I OB I IIKIK IMITATION 

IS A.FFBI IM'NVTELY DEDICATED 

BY THE AUTHOR. 



PREFA.OE 



The task of producing a full delineation of the life and intellec- 
tual achievements of Jami - A. < I aki n.i.n must be Left for some 
competent person in the future, furnished with the ample materials 
in possession of the family of the lute Chief Magistrate of the Re- 
public. 

President Garfield's career was so conspicuously marked by in- 
cessant activities of every kind, and his intellectual labors were so 
prodigious, that it will require volumes to adequately illustrate 
his character and his life work. Tin: evident desire of the public 
mind for some memorial of him which might give a conception 
of what he was and what he did, seemed to warrant the prepara- 
tion of this volume to meet the popular demand. In that prepara- 
tion the best available material has been used, and care taken in 
sifting it. so as to separate truth from error. 

B. J. L. 

The Ridge, December, 1881. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Gakfield and Ballou* Families. 

Opportunities for American citizens. — Thoughts on the rela- 
tions of generations. — Character of Garfield. — His pedi- 
gree.— The Garfields in England.— The Garfields in 
America. — Solomon Garfield in New York". — His son 
Abraham. — The Ballou family in America. — In New 
Hampshire. —Eliza Ballou, mother of President Garfield. 
— She becomes a playmate of Abraham Garfield. — The 
Ballous go to Ohio. — The Western Reserve. — Abraham 
Garfield and Eliza Ballou wedded.— A homo in the Wil- 
derness.— State Canal in Ohio. — Abraham Garfield Set- 
tles in Cuyahoga county. — Birth of James A. Garfield.. . 17 

CHAPTER II. 

Early Life and Aspirations. 

The Cottage in the Wilderness. — Death of President Garfield's 
father.— His widow and children. — The widow's Resolu- 
tion concerning her Family.— Her independence of Spirit. 
Heroic work and Suffering. — Her helpful Son Thomas. — 
School-house on their land. — James Garfield in School. — 
His restless Spirit. —His growth of mind and body. — 
Indebtedness to his brother Thomas. — Unselfish labors of 
■ Thomas. — James a carpenter. — Extent of his Education, 
Reading and home instructions. — The "Disciples of 
Christ."— Their tenuis.— The Garfields become "Disci 
pies." — Mrs. Garfield's cheerfulness and energy. — The 
Constitution and Guerricre, — James at fifteen. — At a 

[viij 



<■ 



viu CONTENTS. 

" Saltery " near Cleveland. — A hay-maker aod wood- 
chopper. — Anxious to "go to sea" on the Lake. — His 
disillosion 33 

CHAPTER III. 

A Critical Period of Life. 

Becomes a Canal-driver. — His experience on a Canal. — His 
moral honesty. — Determines to leave the canal. — Severe 
illness. — His mother draws him to the pat Its of learning. 
— Proposition to go to an Academy. — Enters Geauga 
Seminary. — A letter to its Trustees. — His personal appear- 
auce there. — Mrs. Stiles's kindness aud unconscious 
prophecy. — Lucrctia Rudolph. — James Garfield a district 
6chool teacher. — Joins the church of "The Disciples." — 
His hunger for more Education. — The Western Reserve 
Eclectic Institute at Hiram. — Miss Booth and her influ- 
ence on young Garfield's diameter. — His Studies. — His 
Eulogy on Miss Booth 53 

CHAPTER IV. 

Garfield at Williams College. 

A born orator. — Father Bentley and Garfield. — Sketch of 
Garfield at the Eclectic Institute at Hiram. — Lucretia 
Rudolph at Hiram. — Garfield's choice of a college. 
—His situation at College. — History of Williams Col- 
lege.— Betrothal of James Garfield and Miss Rudolph. — 
Attractions at Williams College. — Garfield's life at Col- 
lege. — His financial arrangements. — He edits the College 
Magazine and his contributions thereto. — A Poem by 
Young Garfield. — Becomes a teacher of writing. — His 
temptation at Troy. — His graduation and college charac- 
ter. — Imitation of Tennyson.— His first political position. 
Thilologian Society. — Garfield and Don Quixote. — 
His filial affection. — Estimate of his character by Presi- 
dent Chadbourne 75 

CHAPTER V. 

Garfield at Hiram College.— Beginning of Political Life. 
^arfiehl a Trofessor at Hiram. — Description of Hiram. — Pres- 
ent of Hiram College. His influence there.— President J 



CONTENTS. \x 

Hinsdale and Garfield.— Garfield's letter of advice to Hins- 
dale. — J. L. Darsie's account of Garfield at Hiram College. — 
Lucretia Rudolph.— Her family. — Marriage of Garfield and 
Miss Rudolph. — Their love of classical studies. — Garfield's 
connection with Hiram College. — He preaches. — Studies 
Law, Lectures, and his interest in the German people. — 
Garfield sympathizes with the Republican Party. — The 
Ostend Manifesto. — Personal Liberty Laws. — Garfield a 
vigorous " Stump Speaker."— A member of the State 
Senate of Ohio. — On a mission to Louisville. — Beginning 
of the Rebellion in South Carolina. —Symptoms of the 
Great Insurrection. — South Carolina Ordinance of Seces- 
sion. — Proceedings in Charleston, South Carolina 96 

CHAPTER VI. 

Beginning of the Civil War. 

Momentous interests at stake. — Garfield's oration at Ravenna, 
on the dignity and privileges of American citizenship. — 
Garfield watches the approaching storm.— 'The people 
look to the Government for strength. — They discover its 
weakness.— President Buchanan and his Attorney-Gen- 
eral. — Advice of the latter. — Weakness of the arguments 
of the conspirators and their friends. — State sovereignty. 
— Garfield advocates measures of precaution. — His ideas 
of coercion as protested against. — His anxiety caused by 
the Secession movements expressed in a letter to Hins- 
dale. — Its prophetic character. — General Dix and bis 
famous order. — Its salutary effect. — Garfield's estimate of 
the character of Lincoln. — His reflections on the aspect 
of the times. — President Lincoln's Inaugural Address. — 
Garfield's readiness for public life. — Declines a tempting 
offer. — Peace Convention at Washington. — Attitude of 
Virginia. — Result of the Convention. — A Virginia agitator 
in Charleston. — The attack on Fort Sumter. — The Presi- 
dent's call for troops. — Responses of disloyal Governors 
to the call. — An extraordinary session of Congress called. 
— The seizure of the national capital. — The prime object 
of the conspirators. — Alexander Stephens urges the capture 
of Washington. The cry of "On to Washington" by 
the Southern press and politicians. — Jefferson Davis's 
protest poetically illustrated 121 



x A - " CONTEXTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

State of the Nation in the Spring op 1861. 

England and other European governments give aid aud comfort 
to the Insurgents. — ,; Shop and Freedom," from Punch. — 

Disloyal utterances.— Mayor Wood suggests the secession 
of New Fork city. — A characteristic article in De Bow's 
iew. Philadelphia's Resolutions. — State supremacy 
advocated by many Northern newspapers. — The "Ameri- 
can Society for the promotion of Union." — Action of 
Loyal States.— Attitude of New Jersey. — Disloyal Reso- 
lutions adopted in Philadelphia. — The -people of Penn- 
sylvania loyal. —Action of Ohio. — Action of Indiana — 
Action of Michigan. — Action of Illinois and Wisconsin. 
—Action of Iowa and Minnesota. — Action of Maryland. 
— Actiou of Deleware. — Kentucky's neutrality. — Garfield 
in the presence of the public danger 152 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Ajtfaibs in Kentucky.— Garfield's First Military Campaign. 

(.iartitKl in the Ohio State Senate- -Ohio Volunteers. — Gar- 
field sent to Illinois for arms. — Recruits a Company. — 
Commissioned Colonel of the Forty-Second Regiment. — 
Bis interview with General Buell. — Commands a brigade 
in eastern Kentucky. — Civil and Military affairs in Ken- 
tucky. — Garfield pursues and defeats Marshall at Middle 
Creek. — Garfield's trusty courier. — Clears eastern Ken- 
tucky of Rebels. — Address to his Soldiers. — Thanked by 
Buell. — Made Brigadier-General. — Procures supplies. — 
Expedition to Pound Gap 177 

CHAPTER IX. 

Battlb of Bhtloh. — Bragg Driven from Tennessee. 

'. irliiM joins Bucll's army.— The Battle of Shiloh. — 
id in that battle. — Garfield and a fugitive 
Returns home sick.-— Ordered to Washington. — 
f Inquiry. —Becomes General Rosecrans' 
Chief of Staff. Hi- services in the Army of the Cumber- 
land. Hii remarkable Report. — Advance of the Army 
into Georgia.— Bragg abandons Chattanooga 203 



CONTENTS. xi 

CHAPTER X. 

Battle op Chickamauga. 

Hostile forces preparing for battle. — Battle of Chickamauga. 
— Details of the battle. — Garfield's services in the 
battle. — At the headquarters of Thomas. — Victory for 
the Confederates on the field. — Troops engaged in the 
battle. — Losses. — Garfield's aid to Thomas. — Commis- 
sioned a Major-General. — Garfield and Copperheads. — 
Elected to Congress. — Leaves the Army. — Rosecrans on 
Garfield 233 

CHAPTER XI. 
Garfield in Congress. — The Peace Party. 
Garfield's constituents. — Joshua R. Giddings in Congress. — 
Garfield's colleague from Ohio. — Garfield and President 
Lincoln. — Peace Party Leaders. — General Scott's famous 
letter. — Professor Morse's plan for Reconciliation. — Lead- 
ers of the Peace Party and Lord Lyons. — The Demo- 
cratic Convention at Chicago and the Confederates, — 
Garfield on the Peace Party Leaders. — Verdict of the 
People '■, 258 

CHAPTER XII. 

Garfield's First Engagements in Debates in Congress. 
Garfield's power felt at an important period.— An effective 
debater.— Speeches during the first session. — Speech on 
Soldiers' bounties. — His first motion in Congress. — His 
first debate. — Speech on Confiscation 283 

CHAPTER XUI. 

Garfield's Career in the Thirty-Eighth Congress,— His 
Independence. 
Combats the heresy of "State Supremacy." — Camden and 
Am boy Railroad. — On Governor Parker's Proclamation. 
— Scathing rebuke of a colleague. — His readiness on 
occasions. — Anniversary of Lincoln's death. — Lincoln's 
desire for more troops. — Garfield's remarks on a bill for 
that purpose. — Garfield true to his convictions. — His 
independence. — Scene in a nominating Convention. — 
Garfield's re-election to Congress 311 



xii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Assassination of President Lincoln. — End of Civil War. 

List of Garfield's speeches in Congress. — Speech on the 
Abolition of Slavery by Constitutional Amendments, — 
On Negro Suffrage. — President Liucolu in Richmond. — 
Surrender of Lee at Appommattox. — Rejoicings. — Assas- 
sination of President Lincoln. — Excitement in New York. 
— General Garfield's Speech on the Event. — Disbanding of 
the Armies. — The Public Debt. — Reorganization of the 
Union. — General Garfield's choice of a Committee. — 
Speech on the Tariff 342 

CHAPTER XV. 

Garfield in the Supreme Court. — On Education and 
"Honest Monet." 

Admitted to practice in the Supreme Court. — Garfield and 
Judge Black. — The case in Court. — Garfield's speech on 
Education. — President Johnson's for reorganizing the 
Union. — His warfare upon Congress. — His journey to 
Chicago and back. — Johnsou impeached. — Garfield and 
wife go to Europe.— His reception on his return. — 
Fidelity to his convictions. — How he broke up a Dis- 
tillery 370 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Garfield's Forebodings. — His Great Speech on the 
Finances. 

Garfield Chairman of Committee on Military Affairs. — Letter 
on various topics. — His dealings with " Political Gen- 
erals." — His interest and efforts in the Resumption move- 
ment. — Garfield's famous speech on the Currency 392 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Garfield on the Census.— Finances and Appropriations. 

Garfield and Thaddeus Stevens. — His position on the subject 
of the Public Debt. — His oration at Asbury on Decoration 
day.— Made Chai rm an of the Committee on Banking and 
Currency.— Labors on the Committee on the Ninth Cen- 
bufl. - Bpeeco on the Census.— A Bill to strengthen the 
public credit.— Garfield's speech on the subject.— A bill 



00NTENT8. xiii 

for increase of banking facilities. -Garfield on a Com- 
mittee concerning Fluctuations in Gold.-Letter to Colonel 
Rockwell— A summary of Garfield's work in Congress. . 429 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Garfield on Public Expenditures—The Credit Mobilieb 
Company. 

Garfield Chairman of Committee on Appropriations—Speech 
on Public Expenditures—The Fourteenth Amendment of 
the Constitution— His Speech on the nature of Govern- 
ments—History of the Credit Mobilier Affair— Charges 
against Garfield in connection with it— His defense and 
full acquittal— Garfield and the " Salary Grab. "-Presi- 
dent Hinsdale's address on Garfield's influence and 
Pointy a 4g6 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Jefferson Davis and Amnesty— The Democratic Party 
Arraigned. 

A Democratic majority in Congress— " Liberal Republicans » 
Unsuccessful effort to defeat Garfield— The people of the 
-North assailed— Garfield defends them— Garfield on 
Jefferson Davis— The peace faction arraigned— Speech of 
Mr. Laman-^arfield's Reply— Quotes from Speeches by 
Lamar and Singleton in 1859— His remarks on the 
course of the Democratic Party concerning Slavery, and 
m the House of Representatives ; ' 483 

CHAPTER XX. 
Resumption, and the Counting op the Electoral Vote. 
General Garfield ever an advocate for « Honest Money -His 
remarks on Resumption— The Presidential election in 
1876— Action of Congress on the Subject— Debate on the 
Electoral Commission— Garfield's Speech on the subject. 502 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Garfield's Latest Services in Congress. 
General Garfield the Republican leader in the House— Esti- 
mate of him as a leader— R. B. Hayes President of the 
United States— His conciliatory policy— Garfield on the 



xi T CONTENTS. 

Policy of Pacification.— Messrs. Ewiug and Kelloy on 
Resumption.— Garfield opposes the " Silver Bill."— His 
Bpeech before the " Honest Money League." — A solemn 
farce. — Special Session of Congress. — A threat to block 
tho wheels of Government. — Riders to Appropriation 
Bills.— Garfield's indictment of the policy of the majority 
of the House.— The President's Vetoes. — Garfield's 
effective Speech on "State Sovereignty." — Close of Gar- 
field's career in Congress. — Chosen United States Senator. 531 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Republican National Convention, June 2, 1880. 

ing of the Convention at Chicago. — Preliminary pro- 
ceedings. — Names of candidates for the Presidency. — 
Mr. Coukling's resolutions in Convention. — The Platform 
adopted.— Nominations. — Garfield's Speech on nominating 
John Sherman for the Presidency. — Other nominations .. 550 

CHAPTER XXHI. 
Garfield Nominated for President of the United States. 

Ballotings for Candidates for the Presidency. — Lesser Candi- 
dates giving way. — Many votes for Garfield. — He raises 
a point of order but is overruled. — Exciting scenes in the 
Convention. — General Garfield unanimously nominated 
for President of the United States. — Receives Congratu- 
lations. — Gratification at the result expressed. — A curious 
incident. — Informal acceptance of the nomination. — Gar- 
field's Speech at Hiram College. — His response to a Sere- 
nade in Washington. — His formal acceptance of the nomi- 
nation. — 0. A. Arthur nominated for Vice-President. — 
Llifl formal acceptance 567 

CHAPTER XXTV. 
Garfield's Election and Inauguration. 
Republican Conference in New York.— Garfield's address to 
"Tli' Blue" and citizens.— The Campaign.— 
President of the United States. 
— T ttulatory visit to him. — Resigns his 
II. journey to Washington. — Inaug- 
uration of J- r . field.- Incidents of the Inaugura- 
tion .- Bii Inaugural Address 596 



CONTENTS. xt 

CHAPTER XXV. 

President Garfield's Administration. — His Assassination. 

Great procession after Garfield's Inauguration. — The Inaugu- 
ration Ball. — Garfield's Cabinet Ministers. — A Struggle 
for Power in the Senate. — Opposition to nominees of the 
President. — The President's firmness. — Resignation of 
Senators from New York. — A struggle for their reappoint- 
ment. — Their seats filled by others. — Progress of the 
Administration. — President Garfield shot. — The assassin 
arrested. — His conduct. — Statement of the affair by a 
public officer. — Excitement everywhere. — Surgeons in 
attendance on the wounded President. — Correspondence 
with the Vice-President. — Interest abroad. — Bulletins. — 
Mrs. Garfield 618 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Death op President Garfield. 

The President lingers eighty days. — Interest in his case mani- 
fested all over the civilized world. — Prayers everywhere 
for his recovery. — Queen Victoria's sympathy expressed. 
— Removal of the President to Long Branch. — A most 
notable journey. — The Presideut at Long Branch. — 
Opinions of his medical attendants. — An alarming re- 
lapse. — The President's sudden death. — Words of con- 
dolence and sympathy from all the States and Terri- 
tories, and from Europe. — Vice-President Arthur becomes 
President. — Official report of an autopsy. — Removal of 
the President's body to the National Capitol. — Funeral ser- 
vices at Long Branch. — The journey. — The body laid in 
state in the Rotunda. — "Wreath laid on the Casket by order 
of Queen Victoria. — An incident. — Final services there. . 644 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

The Funeral at Cleveland. 

The remains of the President conveyed from Washington to 
Cleveland. — Its reception at Cleveland. — It lay in State 
nearly two days, under a Pavilion. — Description of the 
Pavilion. — The funeral ceremonies at the Pavilion. — Rev. 
Isaac Evrett's sermon. — Garfield's favorite hymn. — The 
funeral car. — Ceremonies at the cemetery 666 



xri CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXVin. 

Universal Sympathy. 

I for the salvation of the life of the wounded 
President— Expressions of sympathy in every form at 
bome and abroad.— Unanimity of public Expression con- 
cerning the character of Garfield. — Interest manifested in 
England and on the Continent. — Art tributes in Harpers' 
Weekly. — Borrow expressed on the death of the President. 
Symbols <>f mourning displayed throughout England on 
the day of the funeral.— Messages of condolence and of 
jKithy from Europeans. — Honors awarded in Australia 
and Chili. — Tokens of mourning in America, especially in 
York and Brooklyn. — How the prayers were an- 
l red.— Effect of President Garfield's death 690 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

<i\RFiELD's Domestic Life. 

Ill mbcrs of Garfield's family — The character of his wife por- 
trayed by himself, and by one of her sex.— Description of 
the persons of Mr. and Mrs. Garfield. — Description of a 
to their rural home in Ohio. — Garfield's two homes. 
His home in Washington. — His untiring industry. — 
Classical studies kept up. — A poetic translation by Gar- 
field : 722 

APPENDIX. 

I. SUBSTANTIAL SYMPATHY 741 

II. Mo.MMI.NT TO THE MEMORY OF GARFIELD 742 

III. President Garfield's Fortitude 743 

IV. 1M:i him vrr, aim if. 1. 1>, and Fatalism and Coincidences 741 
V. BOHORED TJT VebSB 752 

VI. A Mi.i>ii ai. REVIEW 765 

VII. A ( Iubious Rboord 789 

VIII Q \ urn id's Notable Words 71)1 

IX I r.i\i. ov THE Assassin 811 



THE BIOGRAPHY 



OF 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE GARFIELD AND BALLOU FAMILIES. 

Our national history is studded with the names of 
brilliant men in every department of activity — statesmen, 
diplomatists, publicists, scientists, theologians, artists, au- 
thors, in the learned professions, inventors and skilled 
artisans. 

The conditions of our society have ever been most 
favorable to the fullest development of the whole man, 
morally, mentally and physically. Our climate and our 
institutions work kindly with the spiritual natures of men. 
Free to choose life's avocations, with every avenue to 
knowledge open, broad and free, and with helpful allies 
all around him, the American citizen must be dull indeed 
or excessively indolent or improvident if, with a sound 
mind in a sound body, he is not found on the high road to 
prosperity and happiness in some degree. 

J17] 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

A* a general rule, in this country only vice and unthrift 
arc the parents of pinching poverty. Honors and emolu- 
ments, the good will of his fellow men, and the rewards 
of industrv await the active man in America who labors 
most earnestly, most wisely, conscientiously, soberly and 
tently To obtain them. In the race for them the 
rruly good citizen is quite sure to win. 

[t has been said that circumstances make men. It may 
as truly bo said that men mako circumstances. There is a 
continual action and reaction — a constant impinging among 
the mural forces which make up the immaterial man; and 
all things in the moral, intellectual and spiritual world are, 
a.- in nature, closely related, whether, in the aggregate or 
individual, refashioning each other by attrition. 

The late President Garfield touched the springs and 
hinted at the profound philosophy of human character 
when, in his admirable eulogy on General George II. 
Thomas, he said: " In this world all is relative. Character 
is the result of innumerable influences from without 
and within, which act concurringLy through life. Who 
shall estimate the effect of those latent forces enfolded in 
the spirit of a new-born child ? — forces that may date back 
centuries and find their origin in the life and thought and 
of remote ancestors — forces, the germs of which, 
enveloped in the awful mystery of life, have been trans- 
mitted silently from generation to generation, and never 
, ! All-cherishing nature, provident and unforgetting, 
ra ap all these fragments, that nothing may be lost, 
that all may ultimately reappear in new combinations. 
thus the ' heir of all the ages,' the pos- 
of qualities which only the events of life can unfold." 
• the private and public career of a man like 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 19 

James Abram Garfield, whose life, "purified as by fire," 
is a model of rare exeellence, is a task which ought to be 
assumed with reverence and thought-fulness, and a prayer- 
ful desire to be just and true in its performance. To do 
this I have availed myself of every source of trustworthy 
information within my reacn. 

Of all the heroes and sages of our country who have 
won the just applause of mankind for well-doing — for 
noble deeds, profound and varied knowledge and shining 
virtues — no one seems more worthy of love and admira- 
tion than he whose life-work I now attempt to record. Not 
even the beloved Washington, embalmed as he is in the 
hearts of all lovers of human freedom throughout the 
civilized world, excelled him in the grand qualities of 
head and heart which make a perfectly rounded and sym- 
metrical character with scarcely a flaw or blemish. 

It was only within the space of little more than twenty 
years that this illustrious citizen appeared conspicuous in 
our national life. In a comparatively humble and circum- 
scribed sphere of action, with no burning ambition for 
public fame, his great spirit was passing through a 
chrysalis existence preparatory for great achievements on a 
higher plane of life. As Minerva sprang full-anned from 
the brain of Jove, the deity of wisdom, to lead mankind 
to goodness and power, so did this hitherto almost obscure 
citizen appear before the nation full-panoplied in moral, 
intellectual and physical strength to battle for the right 
and humanity in the field and in the forum. 

General Garfield said : " Moral forces may date back 
centuries, and find their origin in the life and thought and 
deeds of remote ancestors." His own life illustrated the 
truth of this assertion. Let us look at his lineage : 



i 



THE BIO OR A PHY OF 

James A.bram Garfield was ninth in descent from Ed- 
.•. .u.l Garfield of Chester, England, on the borders of 
Wales, and who emigrated to Massachusetts Bay, in New 

and, in 1636. This paternal ancestor settled in Water- 
town, now a lovely suburb of Boston, which place soon 

ie the great hive of New England, from whence 
Bwarmed almost innumerable families who peopled first 
Connecticut, and then westward, until their descendants 
ippear in large force in the census tables of the Great 
Their genealogies, thirty years ago, covered eleven 
hundred closely-printed octavo pages. 

Edward Garfield was one of the one hundred and six 
proprietors of "Watertown, and in the ancient little cem- 
etery there the remains of five of the late President's 
family name were buried. These names may yet be 
deciphered on the moss-grown and mouldering head- 

- of their graves. These seem to have been all tillers 
of the soil, and bore their part in the heroic labors and 
sufferings of those pioneers of American civilization. 
Their history appears to be summed up, as far as records 

: the brief inscriptions on the tombstones. Edward 
Garfield, the ancestor of all, lived until In. was ninety- 
seven years of age, which is presumptive evidence that 

te of a -frong physical frame, and led a lif? of tem- 
pi ranee and placidity. 

It U nol certain whether the Garfields are from Saxon 
or from Welsh blood. Edward came from the '"border," 
but from which side, whether in England or in Wales, is 
unknown. There appears to have been a large infusion 
of Teutonic blood in Garfield's veins. According to a 
tradition in the family, Edward Garfield married a Ger- 

woman on the long and stormy passage from Eng- 



James a. Garfield. %i 

land to America ; and in support of this tradition is the 
decided German cast of countenance of the family. The 
late President had a strong love for the German race and 
literature. England is not really the fatherland of the 
linglieh-speaking people. Their real ancient home — the 
old dwelling-place of the Anglo-Saxons before they in- 
vaded Britain and created the British Empire — was the 
dark forests of Germany. 

Of the ancestors of Edward Garfield in " the old 
country " nothing is known, and almost nothing of his 
immediate descendants before the middle of the eighteenth 
century. There is on record in the " Herald's Visitation 
to Middlesex," England, about the middle of the seven- 
teenth century (when Edward was in New England), die 
name of Garfield, and a description of the family arms 
and crest of the Garfields of Middlesex. One of them 
was named Abraham, which has kept reappearing in the 
family in this country, shortened, as in the case of the 
late President, to Abram. 

The family have no records of the immediate descend- 
ants of 2d ward Garfield. It is known that Solomon 
Garfield, a lineal descendant, married Sarah Stimpson, 
and went to western Massachusetts, and that his brother 
Abraham, with John Hoar, was called as a witness, in 
1775, by the Province of Massachusetts, to prove that the 
British troops were the aggressors in the skirmish at 
Concord Bridge on the 19th of A pril. The investigation 
concerning that point was very searching, for the Ameri- 
can actors in that fight were anxious to prove, beyond 
question, that the British, not they, were tho first law- 
breakers on that momentous occasion, which opened the 
war for American independence. Abraham Garfield 



>P 

of 
est 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

was a competent witness, for he was one of the New 
England fanners who participated in that skirmish. It is 
ertain that his brother Solomon was in the fight. 
John Hoar, above-mentioned, was the great-grandfather 
of Senator George F. Hoar, whose family are old residents 
of Concord. Senator Hoar was chairman of the Conven- 
tion which nominated James A. Garfield for the Presi- 
dency of the United States. 

Solomon Garfield was sixth in descent from Edward, 
and was the great-grandfather of President Garfield. 
Abraham was his great-grand-uncle. We have uo record 
of the life of Abraham after he signed his name to the 
affidavit which was sent to the Continental Congress that 
the Americans acted on the defensive only in the Concord 
Of Solomon we have slight traces of his future 
career. v7hen the war ended he had a growing family, 
and with thei i he turned his steps westward to the wilds 
of the State <>f New York, beyond the Hudson river, 
lit- joined a small settlement, chiefly of New England 
people, <>n the upper waters of the Susquehanna river, 
in Worcester, Otsego county, then on the borders of 
civilization. There he bought a small farm, and culti- 
I it industriously. He was noted for his physical 
jth. On" day. while at a country store, the mer- 
chant, doubting his alleged muscular power, offered him 
agrindstone, weighing five hundred pounds, if he would 
it home on his shoulder. Solomon raised it to his 
shoulder and boro it in triumph to his house, a mile and 
a half distant, without Btopping to rest. 

near the close of the last century Solomon's sturdy 
' T irried Asenatb Hill, a half-sister of Samuel 

i II. who, ;1 few v v . .... ,],,. ( .l ( .,.] v f Qtsego 



JAMES A. GARFIEl.lh 

county. They were blessed by the birth of a spu in 
December, 1799, whom they named Abraham, and who 
became the father of President Garfield. Thomas, like 
his ancestors, was a tiller of the soil. In 1801 the young 
husband and father, exposed to a storm and great fatigue, 
suddenly sickened and died, leaving a widow with a baby 
less than two years old. That baby was Abraham, the 
father of President Garfield. 

This half-orphan boy was taken charge of, with the 
consent of his mother, by a near friend and neighbor of 
the Garfields, James Stone, of West Hill, and grew to be 
a tall, broad-shouldered, sinewy young man, with little 
school education, but an abundance of mother wit and 
the indomitable perseverance of the Garfield race. He 
appears to have inherited a strong brain, which, untram- 
melled by hard necessity, and allowed extended action, 
might have made him a man of mark among his 
fellows. 

When Abraham Garfield was ten years of age, a small 
family named Ballon came into the sparse settlement of 
Worcester. It was composed of a widow and four chil- 
dren, one (a daughter) about eight years of age. The de- 
ceased husband was James Ballon, a native of Woonsocket, 
Rhode Island. His family had been citizens of that com- 
monwealth for several generations. They were descend- 
ed from the Huguenots, those brave, sturdy, indomitable 
and uncompromising French Protestants who, when the 
fires of persecution again flamed out fiercely after the 
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. in 1085, 
left homes and country and sought freedom to worship 
God as they pleased in English cities, or in the forests of 
America. They gave to our republic some of its best 



UJh BlOOMAPSl Ob' 

I and keenest intellects in the "time that tried men's 
the fierce Btruggle for independence. 
The founder of the Ballon family in America was 
irin Ballon. After the revocation of the famous 
edict lie fled with his family to Rhode Island, where its 
fonnder, Roger Williams, had just died. He appears to 
a Protestant clergyman, and built a church 
edifice in < luraberland, known as the " Elder Ballou Meet- 
ing-house." In that little wooden temple, yet standing, he 
taught the pure religion of Jesns of Nazareth, and the 
higher christian virtues and moralities. His was a race 
<>f preach-!-. I <>r generations his descendants preached 
the same pulpit, and in that modest place of divine 
;• -: • BaUon race in America have annual reunions. 
It is -aid that one <>f Maturin Ballou's descendants, 
himself a clergyman, had ton r sons who were preachers of 
righteousness. < Mir of these sons had three boys who be- 
ministers, and one of these had a son and grandson 
who were also clergymen. The Ballou's have been distin- 
guished in oth.-r avocations. More than twenty of them 
k re in the army of the Revolution ; and Sullivan 
Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Represen- 
d in the firet battle of Hull Run, in July, 1861. 
remarkable of the Ballou. family was 
!lou, the .•hie!' founderof the Christian sect in 
known as - dniversalists." Before his birth his 
ted to the forest-covered region of NTew 
' Richmond, in Chester county, just 

north of the Massachusetts line. He had preached in the 
°W Mieeti: . bat his conscience would not allow him 

• pay to,- hisservices in the sanctuary. Like the 
he believed that a gospel received free 




JtogrsEi? ajiiiFiELQ. 



I 






ff . 






JAMES i. UAlCflELD. 



2.1 



from tile Master should be dispensed as freely by those win i 
W cre able to be almoners of its blessings. Yet ho was so 
poor that Ilosea,iu learning to write, was compel cd to 
use birch bark m lien of paper, and a charcoal solution 

for ink. „ TT , . 

With Ilosea Ballou's family went into IS cw Hampshire 
his cousin James Ballon. James's father felled the forest 
and made a "clearing," for a home. There in due time 
James grew to manhood, full of an adventurous spirit, and 
when he was about twenty years of age he married 
Mehitable Ingalls, from whose paternal ancestor sprang 
General Burns Ingalls, the able chief-quartermaster during 
the American Civil War. These were the parents of Eliza 
Ballon, who became the mother of President Garfield. 

Eliza Ballon, like nearly all the Ballon race, is of small 
stature. The Ballous have been called a " French pony 
hreed," that is, of compact and tough moral, mental and 
physical fibre; possessed of great nervous energy, com- 
bined with untiring power of endurance. They have been 
marked by great conscientiousness and honesty ot purpose, 
tenacitv of will, and a thorough independence of spirit. 
Eliza was born in Bichmoud, Chester county Hew 
Hampshire, on September 21, 1801. There also was 
born, thirty years before, her distinguished kinsman, Kev, 
Hosea Ballon. Her early childhood was spent among the 
beautiful wild scenery of Ballon Dale. Such scenery 
such communings with nature, in its most beautiful and 
attractive aspects, is calculated to inspire the soul with 
devotional emotions, for : 

« The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave 
And spread the roof above- them. Ere he framed 



Til E BI0QHAP21Y OF 

'w vault, to gather and roll back 

t anthems ; in the darkling wood, 

lence, he knelt down 
to the Mightiest solemn thanks." 

mother was a woman of uncommon 
. faith and fortitude ; and after the death 
died young, she taught her child a 
.of faith in God, and trustfulness 
in the hour of hard misfortune, which was 
to her in after life. She felt compelled by hard 
■ :." shmond and seek a new home in an- 
had a friend settled in Worcester, 
bad spoken of its more genial climate 
soil than the granite hills of New Hamp- 
r .die went, when Eliza was about eight 
eated herself ucar the Garfields. Then 
rious workings of God's providence; 
tnge but unuttered prophecy of the 
future, fulfilled in our day. Abraham Garfield and Eliza 
ere playfellows for Beveral years of their child- 
A& they advanced into their "teens" their in- 
uMi.'d a more interesting aspect. The boy of 
fifteen had become gallant and chivalric 
ttie maiden. He was growing up like a tall 
he Wafl like a sweet but vigorous 

■ beauty and fragrance to the world 

A lender passion was budding. 

bed this tender bud. Eli/a Bal- 

. : ... /. grown to young manhood, had 

■ -• in the second war for Independence, 

with General Harrison in Ohio. 

that then far-off and rays- 



JAMES A. O AIRFIELD. 27 

terious land, where its streams were fringed with giant 
sycamores, its forests seemed like templed hills and plains, 
and its maize shot up, like Saul, " head and shoulders " 
above any he had ever seen. He was enamored of the 
country. New England people, especially from Con- 
necticut, were settling on what was yet called the Western 
Reserve, a tract of between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 acres 
of fine land reserved by that State when it ceded to the 
United States, in 1781, its territorial claims by virtue of 
a royal charter given by Charles the Second. It was no 
longer a " reserve," for Connecticut had ceded it to Ohio 
in 1801 ; but the region retained its name, and does so 
at this da}\ It covers several counties in north-eastern 
Ohio. The fine city of Cleveland, on the southern 
shore of Lake Erie, stands on that domain. 

In 1814 James Ballou persuaded his mother to go to 
the "New West," as Ohio was then called. With her 
family she departed, and after traversing the intervening 
wilderness and clearings for about six weeks, they reached 
their destination, near Zanesville, in Muskingum county, 
in central Ohio. Abraham Garfield's heart went with 
his old playmate, the little Ballou maiden, but the legal 
bonds of an apprenticeship to James Stone, who had 
reared him from his infancy, kept his body in Worcester. 
But " love laughs at locksmiths," and at the aire of 
eighteen he broke his fetters and sped to Ohio, where, a 
year later, he married his first love, she being a little 
more than a year his junior. 

Young Garfield had powerful muscles and a will to 
do. He was not long unemployed. The State of Ohio, 
then lusty in its youth, was building a canal more than 
three hundred miles in length, to connect Lake Erie with 






Tin-: BIOOJUPHT oF 



the Ohio river, extending across the State from north to 

M.uth. from Cleveland on the lake, to Portsmouth, on the 

itiful water." That young western State had 

caught the canal fever from the staid and more aneient 

commonwealth of New York. Cautious men shook their 

in doubt, and it took years to bring the State 

. ituiv np to the point of acquiescence in the project. 

miction of ite feasibility and even desirability 

tardy in its growth, until the success of the great 

Erie Canal settled the question. 

In January, L817, the first resolution relating to a 
canal connecting the Ohio river with Lake Erie, was in- 
troduced into the Legislature. In 1819 the subject was 
itated. In 1820, on the recommendation of 
Brown, an act was passed, providing for the ap- 
pointment of three canal commissioners, who were to 
employ a competent engineer and assistants, for the pur- 
pose of surveying the route of the canal. The action of 
the come J, however, was made to depend on the 

tancc h' 88 of a proposition on behalf of the 

, for a donation and sale of the public lands lying 
. and near the route of the proposed canal. 
In nee of this restriction, nothing was accom- 

od for two years. 

In 1 s, jj the Bubjeot was referred to a committee of 
Rej oeentatives. This committee recom- 
mended the employment of an engineer, and submitted 
and observations to illustrate the iin- 
ibility of the work. Under this act, 
New York, an experienced and skillful 
ike the necessary examina- 
Finally, after all the routes had been 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 31 

surveyed, and estimates made of the expense had been 
laid before the Legislature at several sessions, an act was 
passed in February, 1S25, " To provide for the internal 
improvement of the State by navigable canals," and 
thereupon the State embarked in good earnest in the 
prosecution of this great work of internal improvement. 
It was begun in 1825, and when completed it had cost 
the State nearly $15,000,000. 

This and other internal improvements opened a wide 
field for self-help and general usefulness to strong young 
men — strong in body and mind — like Abraham Garfield. 
He found immediate employment in the work of making 
the canal. It was not long before his observed abilities 
caused his promotion to the position of superintendent of 
some of the work. Then he became a contractor, and 
for a time his future prospects were bright, for he began 
to accumulate money. A sudden rise in prices of ma- 
terials and labor caused him to lose heavily, and he 
became bankrupt. 

Garfield now left the region of central Ohio, and 
pushed northward towards the lake, and in January, 
1830, he halted in the deep forests of Orange, in Cuya- 
hoga county, not more than five leagues from Mentor, 
now become so famous. There, on a plot of fifty acres 
of land which he bought, he built a log cabin with one 
room and three windows, for a shelter and home for his 
wife and babies, until he should make a better one. 
Their nearest neighbor was seven miles distant. In that 
log cabin James A. Gakfield, the future President of 
the United States, was born on November 19, 1831. He 
was the latest born of four children. 

That life was " the heir to all the ages." In it met the 



TBS BIOQRAPBY OF 

stnrdj elements of character of fcheGarfielde and the Bal- 

Uis life-career justified his own assertion in after 

• - may date back centuries and liud their 

origin in the life and thonghl and deeds of remote ancestors 

the genns of which, enveloped in the awful 

tery <>f life, have been transmitted silently from 

generation tu generation, and never perish." 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 33 



CHAPTER H. 

EARLY LIFE AND ASPIRATIONS 

Abraham Garfield's home in the Orange wilderness 
was a very humble one, but it was ennobled and adorned 
with love and hope and high resolves. The cabin was 
only about twenty feet one way and thirty feet the other. 
The logs were as rough as when the tree fell, neither moss 
nor bark having been stripped off. Its door was made of 
rude split plank, and was hung on heavy iron strap-hinges. 
There were three small windows, and a board floor made 
smooth with a broad-axe. In the absence of nails or spikes, 
this floor was kept in its place by timbers laid across each 
end. The logs of the house were rudely dove-tailed to- 
gether by an axe wielded by Garfield's skillful hands. 
The chinks between the logs were filled with wet clay, 
and so, also, was the wooden chimney that arose at the end 
of it made tight. It was made comfortable in winter and 
summer ; and it scarcely had a rival in beauty, spaciousness 
and convenience in all that region. Such was the birth- 
place of an American citizen who, when he died fifty years 
afterwards, was honored with formal mourning by not 
only his own nation, but by three European courts by 
order of their respective sovereigns — Queen Victoria, 
King Leopold of Belgium and King Alfonso of Spain. 

A severe blow smote the household of Abraham Gar- 
field in 1833. In the forest that surrounded their clear- 



////: BT0GRAPH7 OF 

i fire broke out, and his garnered wheat was menaced 
with destruction. With pick and spade and other imple- 
ments he f ought the fire with tremendous energy nearly 
a whole -lav. ditching, clearing away leaves and dry brush, 
and pouring on water. He had done the work of half a 
i men and gained a victory. The wheat and his cabin 
■ d. hut the brave man fell almost in the moment 
of bis triumph never t<> rise again. 

< )n entering his cabin at sunset, Garfield's physical 
well-nigh exhausted by fatigue, and, dread- 
fully overheated, he soon felt Ids whole frame trembling 
with a mortal chill. His alarmed wife covered him with 
blankets, but without seeming effect at first. For nearly 
forty hours he Buffered greatly, when either a casual 
r-by or a quack doctor recommended him to have a 
blister placed on his inflamed throat. Almost instantly 
the trouble there was increased, and in the course of a few 
hours he died of suffocation possibly of congestion of the 
Lungs, lb- w;n then only thirty-three yearsof age ami in full 
don «.f hisgreal bodily strength. It is related that 
fore he died he arose, walked to the door, spoke to 
ttle, and as he returned and seated himself on his 
bed, just able t.> speak, he commended his little ones to 
ader care of their mother, and expired. His body 
laid in a comer of the wheat-field. 
In th.it lonely wilderness, with neighbors yet few and 
nt, the stricken young widow was left with four chil- 
itable, aged eleven year.-, Thomas nine, Mary 
.and James not two years old. Did she bow in 
hid. -he dt Listless in despair? Did she lean in 
on lnr neighbors and friends for support? No. 



JAMES A. GARB'IELD. 35 

That would have been dishonor to the Ballon name ; dis- 
loyalty to her Garfield alliance. 

Mrs. Garfield's neighbors were kind, for she had always 
been kind to them. With the best intentions they made 
suggestions about her future, for they regarded her case 
as a desperate one. Bereft of husband, in debt for the 
land, no strong arm to manage and defend, and four chil- 
dren dependent for food and raiment on her own unaided 
exertions, the task seemed too much for her fragile body 
to endure. Some advised her to place her two elder chil- 
dren with families where they might earn their own living ; 
others advised this, others that, all contemplating the aban- 
donment of the struggle which had been bequeathed her, 
for failure in the end appeared to them certain. 

Mrs. Garfield listened patiently and decided promptly. 
No one but a mother should guide the infant minds of 
her children. Mehitable and Thomas were helpful and 
willing, and little Mary could amuse James while the 
mother toiled. She relied with ever abiding faith on the 
promises of Heaven to the widow and the fatherless. The 
law would give her a right to $120 for a year's support, 
which creditors could not meddle with. She was fragile 
but healthful, and she resolved to protect her little brood 
from the storms and privations of the coming winter as 
best she might. While she leaned for rest upon an ever- 
kind Providence, she was governed by the homely-taught 
lesson that Providence helps those who help themselves. 

Many illustrations have been given of the independent 
character of this brave little woman. The citation of one 
or two at this point may suffice. It is related that her hus- 
band, before his death, had put in seed for an ample crop 
of wheat the following year. It was all secured in an in- 



Tin: BIOGRAPHY OF 

closure, excepting about fifteen lengths, of " lawful fence," 
iv, one hundred rails. The chestnut logs were all cut 
and lav in a pile ready for splitting. A few days after the 
funeral Bhe took Thomas to the pile and asked: 

•• M\ son, can we split these rails?" 

•• /'// do my best, mother," said the dutiful boy. 

They attacked the pile. The maul was so heavy that 
she could only just lift it to her shoulder, and with the 
jj-i \iiiLT "t many a Mow, she fell to the ground. But she 
and bravo little Thomas struggled on, split all the neees- 
aary rails and built the fence. Her neighbors would have 
split the rails for her, hut she preferred not to ask or re- 
eeive fa\ ore unless compelled to. 

The ensuing winter was long and dreary. Deep 
sn<»w lay in the forests a long time. At night the little 
group could bear hungry wolves howling around their 
snug cabin, and often the screams of the hungry panther 
were heard on the midnight air. But spring opened 
early and mild with all its impressions of hopefulness in 
anxious heart-. 'I 'lie bereaved family were not only poor 
hut in debt. " < Mit of del.! out of danger," thought the 
widow She had eighty acres of land. She Bold fifty 
of it. paid the amount of the mortgage and other 
debts. With the remaining thirty acres she resolved to 
omfortable home for herself and her children, if 
industry and thrift would gain the reward. When spring 
lerably advanced, the winter stores of the Gar- 
Held family were running low, and lor weeks the provi- 
dent widow ate only one meal a day herself, giving the 

two meal.- to her growing children, thai liny might 

Feel hungry. Thomas, the Belpful, bired a horse, 

ploughed their thirty acres, and put in seed, all 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 37 

with ins own little hands. Finally the harvest came and 
brought them abundance of food and comfort. From that 
time onward the gaunt wolf of pinching want never 
looked into the dour of the Garfield home. 

The neighborhood soon became more thickly settled. 
Some families were not more than a mile distant. Mrs. 
Garfield was an excellent seamstress, and she and Mehita- 
ble, and even little Mary, sewed for their neighbors, while 
Thomas toiled in the fields. Finally, when a little older, 
he hired himself out to work on a farm at twelve dollars a 
month, and this money he poured into his mother's lap in 
silver coins, with more satisfaction than fills the heart of a 
panoplied victor returning with spoil. They raised a few 
sheep ; spun and wove the woolen cloth for their own 
simple garments, and in various ways the busy household 
managed to live comfortably. 

Mere creature comforts did not satisfy the longings of 
Mrs. Garfield for the intellectual culture of her children. 
Before James was four years old he showed an irrepressi- 
ble desire to obtain knowledge. The school-house was 
too far away for him to attend, especially in winter. She 
offered her neighbors a little corner of her farm if they 
would build a school-house on it. They accepted the gift, 
and before winter set in the house was built and an awk- 
ward, tall, " green " young man from New Hampshire, 
was installed as teacher. The school-house was built of 
logs, twenty feet square. The benches were split slabs, 
hewn a little smooth on one side, and supported by rude 
legs at each end. Into this primitive seminary of learn- 
ing James A. Garfield was introduced as a student when 
he was about four years of age. 

The teacher, though young and awkward, was full of 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

sufficient knowledge for his humble field of labor. He 
had a kindly hear! and winning ways that charmed little 
James. The boy was bright and eager to learn. The 
teacher "boarded round," as was the custom everywhere 
in rural districts in those days. He first made his quar- 

• the Widow ( rarfield's, where he thrived on her corn 
bread and Blept in the loft with Thomas and James. He 
took a great fancy to the younger boy, and they were 
60on fast friends. The little fellow learned rapidly, for 
Lis memory seemed never at fault; and at the end of the 
first term he had won the prize of a New Testament as 
the best reader in the school. 

( >ther teachers came, and James was a favorite with 
all of them as the "smartest little fellow in the world." 
Be went to school winters and summers, for his promise 

o great that Thomas the Helpful determined that he 
should not work on the farm but '"get learning as fast as 
he <-«*itl*l.~" Text-books were few then and there. His 
chief spelling as well as reading-book was Noah Web- 

. i hoi bo popular that more than a million were sold 
each year. James's memory was so prodigious that he 
Learned the book "1)}' heart "before he was eight years 

of a--<\ 

James was a restless boy from the beginning. Per- 
petual motion when awake characterized him. One of 
the rigid rules of his first school-master, the New Hamp- 
shire youth, was that hoys and girls must sit still in school. 
James tried to do it, I'm- he wished to he dutiful, but in his 
eagerness ami effort to he obedient he neglected his studies. 
II teacher complained to his mother that he would 
il -till and did not learn. The mother was grieved, 
and her evident di appointment troubled the little fellow, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 39 

who promised to try to do better. He tried hard, but 
in vain. Motion and learning, quiet and a block of wood, 
appeared to be synonymous terms. The Yankee wit of 
the teacher soon solved the difficulty. He allowed James 
to move about as much as he pleased, when the boy shot 
ahead in acquirements which won for him the prize of the 
New Testament for his excellence in reading, as above 
mentioned. In a very few days after this change of 
treatment the teacher was enabled to say to his mother, 
"James is perpetual motion, but he learns; and not a 
scholar in the school learns so fast as he." When James 
carried home the New Testament as a reward for his dil- 
igence and progress, Widow Garfield's cottage was full of 
delight. 

James Garfield's body grew as rapidly as his mind, and 
at the age of ten years he was able to do much on the 
little farm. But Thomas would not allow it. In his 
fatherly, self-sacrificing way he would say : 

u Mother, James is learning so fast that he must not 
be taken out of school to work on the land. I'll do the 
work." 

In this feeling the whole family acquiesced, and the boy 
continued to " tread the path of learning," so bright and 
beautiful, and so attractive to him, with a heart swelling 
with gratitude toward his good brother. How much of 
his knowledge and greatness did James Garfield owe to 
that brother, who was contented to toil unceasingly in 
comparative obscurity for years, to enable the younger 
scion to grow lustily, morally, mentally and physically, to 
make preparations for the career of usefulness and honor 
which marked his life ! That younger brother ever grate- 
fully acknowledged the immense value of that early fos- 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

taring care. While we admire the giant product, let us 
forget the husbandman who matured the germ — 
Thou \s G-asfu ld. 

James, as be grew apace, sought books in every direc- 
tion with avidity. Few could then be found in the yet 
Bparsely-settled region of Orange, in Cuyahoga comity, 
but these he obtained whenever he could borrow them. 
At length Lindley Murray's " English Reader," the only 
reading-book used in the common schools in .America fifty 
. fell in his way and charmed him. He read it 
and again with ever-increasing delight, and during 
his whole Life he could quote from it page after page. No 
•• Reader" has ever excelled Murray's in its salutary in- 
flnences on the minds and hearts of the young. 

The Garfield family had been dwelling in the log 
house which Abraham Garfield built in the wilderness, for 
. Thomas tilling the land and working for his neigh- 
ind James going to school and helping his brother 
nights and mornings with the " chores" and other labors, 
until the former was twenty-one years of age and the lat- 
ter was twelve years old. At that time Thomas, a brawny 
young man, went to Michigan and cleared land for a 
farmer there. Ee returned in a few months, bringing 
with him seventy-five dollars of his earnings. Laying this 
Him before bis mother be said. " Now you shall have a 
house." Thomas had gradually been getting out 
timber, preparing the boards and gathering other materials 
new house. Now a carpenter was hired and they 
work upon it. James, a stout and active lad, joined 
in the labor with a hearty good-will, when not in school, 
and bo expert was he with tools thai the builder said to 
him, "You are a born carpenter." The boy caught at 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 41 

the idea. He determined to become a carpenter and, like 
Thomas, help his mother and sisters. 

During the next two years James worked at the busi- 
ness of a carpenter, going to school only occasionally. He 
became quite an expert mechanic, and in that time worked 
on four or five barns in the settlement, pouring his scanty 
wages into his mother's lap. He had then acquired all 
the rudiments of education, even more than the London 
Alderman's three R's — " Redin', 'Ritin' and 'Rithmetic." 
He had mastered Kirkham's Grammar and Morse's " Geo- 
graphy." He had read " Robinson Crusoe " over and over 
again ; had read and pondered Josephus's " History of the 
Jewish Wars" when he was twelve years of age, and at 
fourteen had mastered Goodrich's " History of the United 
States." He had then read two or three romances, 
notably " Jack Halyard " and "Alonzo and Melissa," the 
former calculated to kindle a boy's passion for the sea, 
the latter (which was written by a half Quaker resident 
in Duchess county, N. Y.), to soothe his spirit with senti- 
mental pictures of the tender emotion of love. 

Better than all this book knowledge, James Garfield, 
under the judicious teachings of his mother, became 
thoroughly imbued with strong religious feelings, and 
had the germ of a pure faith implanted in his heart so 
soon as his intellect began to bud and blossom. How 
general is the rule that " Great men are the sons of great 
mothers." In this category may be ranked as a bright 
illustration of the rule, Eliza Garfield and her illustrious 
son. Religion, " pure and undefined before God and 
man," was a part of that mother's nature. It was her 
family inheritance. She and her husband had been con- 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

verted to the faith of a Christian sect called "Disciples 
I ■." before James's birth. 

This sect (the Disciples), of which the late President 
was a member from his early manhood, was founded by 
inder Campbell, a kinsman and classmate of Thomas 
Campbell, the poet They arc more familiarly known, 
from this circumstance, as " Campbellites." The founder 
orn in Ireland, in the summer of 17S6, and died in 
Bethany, West Virginia, in 1866. He was a Presbyterian 
clergyman, and emigrated to America with other Scotch- 
Irish Bottlers, in L807. For a while he was pastor of a 
church in Washington county, Pennsylvania, but he soon 
separated from the Presbyterians, because of his convic- 
tion that creeds devised by human agency were unneces- 
sary, and sometimes hurtful — that the Bible should be the 
sole creed of Christ'6 church. In 1810, Alexander 
Campbell and his father organized a new religious society 
at Brush Run, Pennsylvania. Anew revelation came to 
him in L812, and he was convinced that immersion was 
the <>nly valid mode of baptism according to the prescript 
Scriptures. Then he and his whole congrega- 
tion, who followed him in the partial development of his 
. were immersed. They united with a reghhfr Bap- 
iiation, but continued to protest against all human 
a bond of union in the churches. This was toe 
idinarian for the Baptists, and they were excluded 
ironi fellowship with Baptist churches. In 1S2T they 
■i io form themselves into a separate organi/a- 
-till adhering to the form of immersion, in baptism, 
3 sriptural mode. The sect rapidly increased, |>ar- 
irly in the States of Virginia, Kentucky and Ten- 
first, hut later in a greater degree in Ohio and 



JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 45 

Indiana, until now they number probably not much less 
than seven hundred thousand members. In 1840, Mr. 
Campbell founded Bethany College, a seat of learning of 
the sect, of which he was President the remainder of his 
life. 

The fundamental tenets of the Campbellites, or Dis- 
ciples of Christ, are few and simple, and their practice in 
worship is primitive. It has been remarked that " a belief 
in the New Testament and in the Divine character of 
Christ and his atonement, and in immersion as a proper 
mode of baptism, are all there is of the so-called ' Camp- 
bellite faith.' They protest against imposing, as a con- 
dition of church membership, any human formula of 
Divine truth. In practice they are very simple and 
apostolic. Laymen may preach, and preaching is not re- 
garded as an isolated and peculiar profession " 

The following is the simple formulary of their 
faith : 

1. "We call ourselves Christians or Disciples. 

2. We believe in God the Father. 

3. We believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the 
living God, and our only Saviour. W T e regard the divin 
ity of Christ as the fundamental truth in the Christian 
system. 

4. We believe in the Holy Spirit, both as to its agency 
in conversion, and as an indweller in the heart of the 
Christian. 

5. We accept both the Old and New Testament Scrip- 
tures as the inspired word of God. 

6. We believe in the future punishment of the wicked 
and the future reward of the righteous. 

7. We believe that Deity is a prayer-hearing and 
prayer-answering God. 



im: BIOGRAPHY <>r 

-. w . -. ;vr the institution of the Lord's Supper on 
cw-r\ Lord's Day. To thia table it is our pfactice neither 
to inrite nor debar. We say it is the Lord's supper for 
all the I-' rd'fi children. 

Replead for the union of all God's people on the 
Bible, and the Bible alone. 

10. The Bible is our only (.•reed. 

11. We maintain that all the ordinance.- of t lie (iospel 
should be observed as they were in the days of the 

A little before James Garfield was born, a man of the 
Disciples named Bentley, who had established a mill and 
a store two or three miles from the Garfield home, 
preached all through that county while he kept his busi- 
ness moving. He was an uneducated man, but there was 
something in hi.- plain and primitive manner, and the 
v of his utterances, that was peculiarly convincing, 
and it was under the influence of his ministrations that 
Abraham Garfield and his wife became a member of the 
Church of the Disciples of Christ. This was the begin- 
ning of the power of the sect in that portion of the 
W • •■ rn Reserve. 

Mrs. Garfield was a diligent studenfcof the Eoly Scrip- 
tures. A Disciples' meeting-house had been established 
about three miles from her home, to which she and her 
children walked every Sabbath, when not too stormy, for 

. to engage in public worship. She caused her chil- 
dren also to be . I Bible readers, and with the aid of it* 
teachings Bhe educated her household in the purest princi- 

of morality, which made ever) word or deed 
darkened with the lightest shade of indecency hateful to 
her and them in a degree not to be described. Yet she 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. -17 

was by no means an austere woman or a prude. There was 
never seen any of the forbidding aspeets of asceticism in 
her home. On the contrary, she Mas a woman of uncom- 
mon cheerfulness of temper ; fond of innocent merriment ; 
an excellent singer of a great variety of hymns, songs and 
ballads, and filled her home with music from morning 
until night. She was fond of singing to her children 
patriotic songs, such as " Constellation and Chesnyenti" 
•' Rodgers and Yictory," et cetera. Her favorite patriotic 
sung was "The Constitution and Guerriere" as follows, 
which until late in this century was sung at public 
gatherings: 

"By the trident of Neptune," brave Hull cried, "let's 

steer : 
It jioints out the track of the bullying Guerriere ; 
Should we meet her, brave boys, ' Seamen's rights' be the 

cry : 
AYe fight to defend them, to live free or die." 

The famed Constitution through the billows now flew, 
While the spray to the tars was refreshing as dew, 
To quicken the sense of the insult they felt 
In the boast of the Guerricre's not being the Belt. 

Each patriot bosom now throbbed with delight, 
When, joyful, the cry was, " A sail is in sight!" 
''Three cheers!" cried the captain: "my lads, 'tis the 

foe : 
British pride shall this day be by Yankees laid low." 

Behold now the Guerriere, of Britain the boast, 
Her topsails aback, and each tar to his post ; 
While Dacres a flag did display from each mast, 
To show that, as Britons, they'd fight to the last. 



TBS BIOGRAPBT OF 

The American stars now alofl were unfuiTd, 

\\ ripee i" the mizzen-peak: a proof to the 

world 
That, bowe'er British pride might bluster or fret, 
The bud of her glory should not thai Way be set. 

Now, prim'd with ambition, her guns loaded full, 

rriere's broadsides roar'd tremendous at Hull; 
only the hero, ship and crew to annoy, 
Bui the Hull of our freedom, our rights to destroy. 

\- t lie brave Constitution her seamen drew nigh, 
Eacb 1m a it heat with valor, joy glisten'd each eye; 
While Hull, whose brave bosom with glory did swell, 

trade — seamen's rights ! now let every shot 

tell." 

k as lightning, and fatal as its dreaded power, 
Destruction ami death on the Guerriere did shower; 
While the groans <>( the dying were heard in the blast, 

Tin' word was, " Take aim, boys, away with the mast !" 

The genius of Britain will long rue the day : 
Tin' Ouerrier&'s a wreck in the trough of the sea; 
Q laurels are withered, her boasting is done; 
Submissive — to leeward she tires her lust gun. 

Now brilliant the star- of America shine, 

ie, hom.r ami glory, brave Hull, they are thine ; 
You have Neptune amazed, caused Britain to weep, 
While Yankees triumphantly sail o'er the deep. 

Tie- sea, like the air, by greai Nature's decree, 
W;<- given in common^ ami .-hall ever be free ; 

1 1 i urnpike, where Britain keeps loll, 

Hull, Jones, ami Decatur will pay for the whole. 



JAMES .!. QABFIELD. tfl 

It was under the holy influences of such patriotic, and 
also devotional sentiments, and of sunny cheerfulness, that 
the child-life of James Garfield was subjected. There 
Was a sturdiness, an aggressiveness, and a stern sense of 
right that made him while a mere lad thoroughly self- 
asserting, even to pugnacity. When fourteen or tilt ecu 
years of age he -was a big, strong boy, capable of doing 
all sorts of "men's work" on a farm, and ever ready to 
defend his honor and his rights against all aggressors'. He 
was too good-natured to be quarrelsome, but lie was quick 
to resent an insult. When other boys lorded it over him 
he regarded it as an imputation on his social condition ; 
and no matter what might be the disparity in size or 
strength, he would instantly attempt (and generally with 
success), to chastise the offender. He soon earned the 
reputation of a " fighting boy," which name distressed 
his mother, yet she could not but approve and admire his 
manly courage. His battles were never for anything else 
but a defense of his jjood name. 

It was at about this age that James, possessed of the 
bottom elements of an English education, aspired to some 
position more profitable than barn-building. He came to 
the conclusion that he was not "a born carpenter." 
About ten miles from his mother's house, and near Cleve- 
land, was the establishment of a thriving " black-salter " 
— a boiler of " black salts " from the ashes of burned 
logs. He engaged James to assist in building a wood- 
shed, at the rate of nine dollars a month. Finding him 
expert at figures, and trustworthy, the man offered him 
fourteen dollars a month and his board if he would take 
care of his accounts and " 'tend the saltery." This was a 
tempting offer. The sum appeared large, and that night 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

he walked home to consult hie mother. She reluctantly 
Rave her consent, for she feared there was wickedness 
lurking in the business somewhere. He performed his 
duties i" the full satisfaction of his employer, who told 
him he mighl yei own a saltery himself. 

James soon found some of the wickedness or tempta- 
tions his mother feared might be* lurking near Cleveland. 
It was in the Bhape of books in the black-Baiter's 
" library," Bucb a- ( laptain Man-vat's novels — stories of the 
Bea: "The Pirate'sOwn Book," the "Lives of Eminent 
Criminals," and so on. These inflamed his imagination, 
and stimulated a natural love tor adventure ton dangerous 
■ e. A circumstance that might appear trivial to 
some minds, soon caused his removal from the tempta- 
tion.-. Overhearing one day a woman of the Salter's 
family speak of him as a "servant," his pride was 
touched. He packed his. scanty wardrobe in a little 
bundle, and half an hour after the offensive epithet was 
applied, and in despite of the entreaties of his employer, 
lie was on his way to his mother's house, where he was 
receh ed with gladness. 

James now found employment at haying, and in the 

Bummer, when lie was nearly sixteen years old, he re- 

ceived a man'.- full wages— a dollar a day- at that busi- 

which was the largest pay he ever got at manual 

labor. When haying was over he went to hi.- uncle 
Thomas, a1 Newburgh mow included in the city of 
1 land), and engaged to chopa hundred cords of wood 
for twenty-five cents a cord, at which business he earned 

about half a dollar a day. 

From the w led height where he was chopping, 

I '! c Erie, and the vessels gliding 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 51 

over its bosom. His imagination, fired by the books in 
the Salter's "library," was now rekindled into a fiercer 
flame, and he felt an almost irrepressible desire to " go to 
sea." But for the feeling that to break a contract would 
be dishonorable, he would have fled from the prosaic 
wood-chopping- to the docks at Cleveland. He finished 
the task, received twenty-live dollars, and hastening to his 
mother placed it in her lap, at the same time telling her 
how strong was his desire to become a sailor. His 
mother, who had indulged pleasaut dreams of his becom- 
ing a scholar, was disappointed and grieved, but perceiv- 
ing that he was extremely anxious to go, did not oppose 
him, feeling certain that in some way the event would re- 
sult in good. He promised her that he would try and 
procure some other respectable employment, and kept his 
word. 

With a small bundle of clothing and a few dollars in 
his pocket, James Garfield left his mother's door-step and 
walked to Cleveland, a distance of seventeen miles, where 
he arrived at twilight. After a night of sound sleep he 
proceeded to view the city, and fulfil his promise to his 
mother to look for employment in it. To this unsophisti- 
cated back-woods boy everything seemed wonderful. Such 
big houses, such tall steeples, and so many people, he had 
never seen before. But nobody wanted him. Every 
place in business quarters appeared to be filled ; and he 
was advised by a good-natured gentleman, who tested his 
abilities a little, to go back to Orange and teach school, or 
plough and hoe for an honest living. 

Wearied and footsore, young Garfield strolled down to 
the docks towards evening, where much of the romance 
of the sea was soon taken out of him. He saw none of 



TUB BIOGBAPHT OF 

the "majestic vessels" which Captain Marryat told abont. 
He went od board of a craft lying there— a dingy, dirty 
fore-and-aft schooner. He made his way to the cabin, 
which was BufEocating to him with tobacco smoke, and 
there he fonnd half a dozen men d rinkin g and carousing. 
Be inquired of a Bailor on the deck for the captain, and 
was told hf would soon come out. lie appeared, be- 
grimed with dirt, intoxicated, and swearing as blas- 
phemonsly as might any character portrayed in "The 
E*irate , s Own Book." The lad was dreadfully shocked 
and disgusted, and his disillusion was almost complete. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 68 



CHAPTER III. 



A CRITICAL PERIOD OF LIFE. 



Young Garfield was not wholly diverted from his pur- 
pose to u go to sea 1 ' 1 by the shock he received on board 
the dingy lake schooner. As he left her he met his 
cousin, Amos Letcher, captain of the Evening Star, a 
canal boat. He knew Captain Letcher only by sight. He 
said to the captain, in substance : 

" I came here to ship on the lake, but they only swear 
at me and call me a country greenhorn." 

Letcher wanted a driver, and young Garfield, regarding 
the navigation of a canal as an initiatory step toward the 
navigation of the lake, and ultimately of the ocean, ac- 
cepted the position of driver under the command of his 
cousin. lie was not actuated in his efforts to " go to sea " 
by any wild spirit of adventure, but by a fixed purpose* to 
make his living on the water. He entered with hope on 
the duties of his new position. The captain put him in 
charge of two horses. When the Evening Star was 
through the lock and ready for her voyage, James Gar- 
field, always punctual, was ready with his team, and very 
soon he was off on his first day's experience as a " canal 
driver." In that business he was engaged about four 
months, and the experience he then gained was of real 
service to him in after years, as we shall observe. 

Mr. Edmund Kirke, who wrote a brief biography of 



51 ////: nioanAPiiv op 

President Garfield, relates some characteristic anecdotes 
which were communicated to him by Captain Letcher. 
The following indicates a salient point in Garfield's char- 
acter . 

"Ai Eleven Mile Lock we changed teams. Another 
hand took the tow-path, and Jim, with his team, came on 
board. After he had taken care of his team Jim came 
up on deck, and 1 thought 1 would sound him a little on 
the rudiments of geography, arithmetic and grammar, 
fur I ua> juM green enough in those days to imagine that 
I knew it all. You see, I had been teacher for three 
winters in the backwoods of Steuben county, Indiana. 

'• ' Jim,'" I said, ' I hear there is some come-out to you, 
and if you have no objections I would like to make up my 
own mind in regard to it. As it is a long way to Pancake 
Lock, this will be a good time; so I should like to ask 
you a few quesl inns. 

" ' Proceed,' said Jim, ' but don't ask too hard 
ones.' I asked him several and he answered them all, and 
then turned on me, and asked me several that I could not 
answer, and 1 was like the boy who got into a row and 
said, ' If you'll let me alone, I'll let you alone.' 

"'Jim,' 1 said, 'you have too good a head on you to 
be a wood-chopper or a canal-driver. You go to school 
one term more, and you will be qualified to teach a com- 
mon school, and then you can make anything you have a 
mind to oul of yourself.' 

'" ' Do you think so, captain ?' And it set him a 
thinking, I know. 

'• Everything went off well until about ten o'clock 
that night. 'I Inn we were approaching the twenty-one 
locks of Akron, and I sent my how man to make the firs! 
lock ready, dust as he got there, a bow man from a boat 
appeared and said, ' Don't turn this lock ; our boat 
is jusl around the bend, ready to enter.' But my man 
nd commenced turning the gate. By this tune 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

both boats were near the lock, with their head-lights 
shilling as bright as clay, and every man from both was 
on hand, ready for a field fight. I motioned to my bow 
man, and asked, ' Were you here first ?" 

" 'It is hard to tell,' he replied, 'but we will have the 
lock anyhow.' 

" ' All right ; just as you say,' I said ; and we laid out 
for a battle. 

"Jim had heard what had been said, arid, tapping me 
on the shoulder, he said, ' See here, captain, does that 
lock belong to us ?' 

" ' I really suppose, according to law, it does not ; but 
we will have it anyhow. ' 

" ' No,' replied the boy, ' we will not.' 

" ' And why not ?' I asked, in surprise. 

" 'Because it does not belong to us.' 

" I saw that Jim was right, so I cried, ' Boys, let 
them have the lock.' 

"At sunrise next morning we had got through all 
the twenty-one locks, and were on Summit Lake. It 
was a fine morning. The other driver was cracking his 
whip over his leader, had got them to a trot, and all 
seemed to be in good humor. Breakfast was called. 
George Lee, our steersman, came out and sat down to 
breakfast, and the first word he spoke was, ' Jim, what is 
the matter with you ?' 

"'Nothing,' said Jim; 'I never felt better in my 
life.' 

'"But why did you go for giving up the lock last 
night ?' 

'"Oh, I thought it wasn't ours.' 

'"Jim, you are a coward,' he answered; ' you ain't 
fit for a boatman. You may do to chop wood or milk 
cows, but a man or a boy isn't fit for a boat who won't 
fight for his rights.' 

"Jim didn't make any answer." 

The boy met with many adventures on the canal, in 



'////' BIQQRAPH7 OF 

-.pinr.it" which his life was Bometimes imperilled. It is 
said that during that service lit- fell into or was thrown 
into the canal fourteen times. The last time the interpo- 
sition of Providence in his behalf was'Bo tangible to his 
mind that the event was a solemn and salutary sermon, 
which he heeded. He determined not to tempt Provi- 
dence any more by risking or recklessly throwing away 
his life in th<' canal service, and he resolved to go home, 
resume Btudy and endeavor to acquire a thorough educa- 
tion, and bo make his mother happy and himself more 
useful, perhaps. He had scarcely formed this resolution 
when he was seized by a malarial fever, contracted on the 
canal, and was taken to his home in an almost delirious 
.-fate. 

For several months the poor boy was confined to his 
home by the fever and its resulting weakness. His 
loving, anxious mother watched over him prayerfully 
every hour, and nursed him as tenderly as when he was an 
infant on her bosom. She had observed the development 
in him of an indomitable will and a perseverance in a 
line of action which he might have chosen. She had 
iio|,.-d to rescue him from the thrall of the passion for the 
sea, and now seemed to he her opportunity. 

With consummate art, born of true affection for her 
boy, the widow, in an almost insensible manner to him, 
laid siege to 1 1 M ■ Btronghold of the tempter. She never 
• • •! imi -'- arguments or expressions of desires by abso- 
lute opposition. She did not, as she might have gently 
done, poinl lo his canal experience, incurred againsl her 
will and judgment, as the cause of his present illness. 
She was only the quiet, patient nurse, dropping a wise 
word now and then, while she was trying to be to him a 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 59 

wise mentor, leading him to higher and nobler ways. 
Sometimes, during his convalescence, he would become 
restless, and express a strong desire to be about again and 
resume his work on the canal. She would say, in sub- 
stance, in her sweet way : 

k ' You are sick yet, my son. If you return to the 
canal you may soon be brought back as before. I have 
thought it all over, and it seems to me that you had 
better go to school this spring a while, and then with a 
term in the fall you may be able to teach next winter. If 
you teach winters, and work on the canal or lake summers, 
you will have employment the year round." 

The adroit reasoning of his mother, and his desire to 
please her, combined to win James to the side of her 
aspirations. It was a tough struggle between will, logic 
and affection. She called to her aid every possible 
auxiliary. When he was able to read she laid a contri> 
bution on the resources of the neighborhood for books 
for his use — books, the contents of which might prove an 
antidote to the virus of the works he had encountered in 
the Salter's library— books that would fill his mind with 
purer thoughts and nobler aspirations. She formed an 
alliance in efforts towards this end with a young school- 
master named Bates (afterwards a distinguished preacher), 
who taught school in their neighborhood. He visited 
the sick lad frequently, and when James had acquired 
sufficient strength Bates assisted him in working out the 
higher problems of arithmetic. In every way he was a 
powerful auxiliary of Mrs. Garfield in stimulating the 
intellectual and moral powers of her son to aspire to 
nobler performance in life by means of a thorough educa- 
tion. 



77//: BIOGRAPHY "/■ 

Young Garfield had learned all that a district school 
could teach when he was seventeen years of age. Mr. 
Bates had attended the Geauga Seminary, an academy at 
Chester, in the adjoining county of Geauga, and knew how 
thorough, though sometimes eccentric, was the teaching 
there. Mrs. Garfield was anxious to have James secure 
its advantages. How should he do it? How should he 
raise the money to pay for his board and tuition? His 
money earned on the canal was exhausted. " Where 
there's a will there's away" is a sound maxim. There was 
here a will and a way was soon opened. When James 
interposed the plea of poverty and the necessity for him 
t<> earn more money, his mother said : 

" James, you are not fit to go back to the canal or the 
lake now ; you will surely be sick again. Thomas and I 
have talked the matter all over. We will raise seventeen 
dollars, which will nearly pay the expenses of your going 
to Chester to school for some time. "When that is gone 
we will try and raise more, if necessary."* 

James had already resolved to please his mother and 
elevate himself by abandoning the canal and the lake, the 
saltery, and the perusal of "The Pirate's Own Book" 
and kindred literature, and devote his time and energies 
for years, if need be, in the acquirement of not only a 
"common" but a '-liberal" education. From the well 
of his own experience he drew these thoughts uttered by 
him in after life: "It is a great point gained when a 
young man makes up his mind to devote several years to 

the accomplishment of a definite work." This point he 
had now gained, and he was fully eight years reaching 
the goal he had Bel up, namely, graduation from a repu- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 01 

table college with learning sufficient to merit an honorary 
degree. 

The prayers of Mrs. Garfield were now answered and 
her heart was at peace. She persuaded her sister, who was 
living not far away, to send her two boys to the same 
academy, that the three might club together in keeping 
''bachelors" hall," and subsisting on the supplies which 
they might carry with them. To quiet his fears for the 
result of the experiment and to seem to still consult his 
inclinations, the judicious mother again told him that if he 
was still determined to go on the lake, he might go to 
school that year, by the end of which she hoped his health 
would be fully restored, and then if he went to work 
haying or carpentering he would make enough by the fall 
term to go to school again. By that time he might teach 
a district school, or, if he wanted to, he could sail on the 
lake in summer, and when it was frozen he might teach 
school. All this while there was the prophecy of hope in 
her heart which was fulfilled in after years in wondrous 
plenitude. 

In the spring of 1849, when James Garfield was in 
his eighteenth year, he a: 1 his two cousins, well pro- 
visioned, walked ten miles to Chester and entered Geauga 
Seminary. It was an institution founded by the free 
Will Baptists who had seceded from the general fellow- 
ship. They rented a room in an old house partly occu- 
pied by a poor widow, and furnished with a cooking- 
stove and two beds. The widow cooked and washed for 
them for a very moderate compensation, for none of 
them had very extensive wardrobes. Thus prepared they 
entered the academy as students. Daniel Branch 
was principal of the academy and his wife was 



/■///■: BlOQJUPSI 

chief assistant It was quite spacious in its dimensions 
for that time and place, and possessed a library of aboul 
one hundred and fifty volumes. The sight of this library 
opened to the view of young Garfield a rich mine of in- 
tellectual wealth. In a letter to the trustees of Geauga 
Seminary, written in ls<>7. and inclosing a contribution 
for the purpose of renovating the seminary building, 
General Garfield wrote of his experience there at that 
time as follows : 

" In accordance with your request, I will make a brief 
statement of my connection with Geauga Seminary. I do 
this with the more readiness because it is a source of great 
pleasure to me to recall the persons and scenes connected 
with the beginnings of my student life. 

"In the winter of 1848-'9 I was at my mother's house 
in Orange, Cuyahoga county, Ohio, suffering from a three 
months' siege of fever and ague, which I had brought 
from the Ohio canal the preceding summer. Samuel D. 
. now a distinguished minister of the gospel in 
Marion, Ohio, was that winter teaching the district school 
near my mother's. He had attended the seminary at 
Chester, and urged several of the young men in the neigh- 
borhood to return there with him i.i the spring. Being 
yet too ill to return to my plan of becoming a sailor on 
the lake, 1 resolved to attend school one term and post- 
pone Bailing until autumn. Accordingly, I joined two 
other young men. and, with the necessary provisions for 
boarding ourselves, we reached Chester. March 6, L849, 
and rented a room in an unpainted frame house nearly 
west from the seminary and across the street from it. 

' bought the second algebra 1 ever saw, and com- 
menced the Btudy of it there. Studied also natural phil- 
osophy and grammar. 

" ■ attended there in the fall of L849, and during the 
following winter taught my first Bchool. Returned to the 



JAMES A. OARFIELD. 6:J 

seminary again in the spring of 1850. I commenced the 
study of Latin and finished algebra and botany. At the 
close of the spring term I made my first public speech. 
It \vas a six minutes' oration at the annual exhibition. 
.VI v diary shows the anxiety and solicitude through which 
I passed in its preparation and delivery. 

" During the summer vacation of 1850 I worked at 
the carpenter's trade in Chester. Among other things, I 
helped to build a two-story house on the east side of the 
road, a little way south of the seminary grounds. At- 
tended school during the fall term of 1850, and com- 
menced the study of Greek. Worked mornings, evenings 
and Saturdays at my trade, and thus paid my way. After 
the first term at Chester I never received any pecuniary 
assistance. The cost of living, however, was much less 
than it now is. In my second term at Chester I had 
board, lodging and washing for one dollar and six cents 
per week." 

Young Garfield's personal appearance at the age of 
eighteen years is thus described by one who saw him 
casually, on one occasion, at the house of a friend : 

"He was rather shabbily but neatly clad. He 
appeared like a fast-growing lad, for he was then five feet 
ten inches in height. He was dressed in pantaloons 
much too short for him, reaching only half-way down the 
legs of his well-worn cowskin boots. They were made of 
coarse grey satinet. His waistcoat of serge cloth was 
much too short for him ; and his coat, of similar material, 
was worn threadbare, and the sleeves reached only to a 
point half-way between the elbows and the wrists. His 
head (which bore an abundance of yellow hair— real 
'Saxon locks') was covered by a drab slouched hat 
without a band ; and his shirt, as it appeared at the neck 
and sleeves, was spotless white linen, made from flax 
raised on his mother's little farm, and spun with her own 



Till: BIOQRAPEY OF 

hands. His eyea were blue, his complexion ruddy, his 
bead was expansive, and there was strength and intel- 
ligence in every feature. He was there on an errand for 
oother. He stood with his hat off, and his wliole 
head and facial expression struck me as most remarkable. 
When lie departed I said to my friend, ' That boy will 
make a noise in the world.' " 

In his letter above quoted, General Garfield speaks 
of his boarding during; his second term at the seminary. 
!b kvelt with Mrs. Stiles (yet living, I believe), a very 
kind-hearted woman, whom he always gratefully remem- 
bered when recalling the struggles of his early years. 
Bis wardrobe was then very scanty. He had no woolen 
underclothes nor overcoat, but his young blood, impelled 
by a powerful heart, coursed freely through his system, 
and he never suffered from cold. He had only one suit 
of clothes, of rather coarse materials, at that time, and 
they were well worn — so much, indeed, that one day, 
bending his leg suddenly, his trousers were torn several 
indies across the knee, exposing the bare skin. He 
pinned ap the rent as well as he could, and expressed to 
Mrs. Stiles not only his mortification but his anxiety, 
because he saw no way to remedy the misfortune to his 
onh pair of trousers. 

ro to bed,*' said the good Mrs. Stiles, "and let one 
of the boys bring your trousers down stairs and 1 will 
darn the rent so that you cannot see where they arc 
mended. You shouldn't care for such small matters. 
You will forgel all about them when you come to be 
dent." This anecdote is related by Mr. Kirke. 

At the seminary, during his first term, young Garfield 
met (only at recitations), a modest, retiring, bright and 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 05 

studious girl, about liis own age, named Lueretia Rudolph. 
Their casual acquaintance at that time amounted to 
mutual respect, nothing more. We shall meet her again 
in more intimate relations with the destiny of the tall, 
awkward schoolboy at Chester. 

At the end of his first term at Chester young Garfield 
felt himself sufficiently advanced to teach a district school. 
After examination he received a certificate of his fitness ; 
and after working at haying and carpentering he first be- 
gan the business of a pedagogue a fortnight before he was 
eighteen years of age, in the school district next to the one 
in which he was born. For this service he received twelve 
dollars a month and was " boarded around." 

It seemed unfortunate for Garfield that he began his 
task of schoolmaster so near his own home. In the district 
where he began he was known as " Jim Garfield." Many 
of the scholars were big, rude boys, who had taken special 
pride in bullying the school-teacher. So turbulent had 
been their behavior the previous winter that the teacher 
was compelled to leave the school. Young Garfield soon 
comprehended the situation thoroughly, and nerved him- 
self for a field fight. For a fortnight there was almost 
continuous skirmishing. Finally, one of the boys, as if 
desirous to bring on the impending battle, flatly refused to 
obey the young schoolmaster. Garfield gave him a sound 
thrashing. As the culprit was returning sullenly to his 
seat he caught up a heavy billet of wood and was about to 
strike the teacher a murderous blow. A cry from the 
scholars called Garfield's attention to the danger. He 
threw up his arms and received the blow on one of them, 
which nearly broke it. With the other arm he seized the 
culprit, cast him to the floor prone upon his back ; then 



Till: BIOGRAPHY OF 

jerking him ap to his feet he threw him again with much 
violence, pu1 hia knee upon his breast, and seizing 
liiin by hifl throat pounded him with his fist until he sur- 
rendered. Then turning to the big sympathizers with the 
vanquished he said: " Ef there is any scholar here who ex- 
pecte at any time to make any sort of disturbance, come 
on now and settle it here." There was not another mutiny 
in the school afterwards. " It was not ' Jim Garfield' any 
longer," says the relator of this anecdote (Major Bundy), 
" but 'Master Garfield.'" 

It was at about this time that young Garfield united 
himself by prof ession and baptism with the church of the 
Disciples of Christ, lie was then a few months past 
eighteen years of age. Like many young men at that age — 
the " asses' bridge" of life — he was "wise in his own con- 
ceit;" W;IS somewhat restive under the restraints of re- 
ligious discipline, and seemed, at times, wearied with 
"precept upon precept "that fell from the lips of the 
preachers. He was often absent from religious meet- 
ings. At Length a wise old man, possessed of great 
good sense and straightforward simplicity of character and 
speech, held meetings in the school -house. His ministra- 
tion- l'n-.-t aroused the fixed attention of the young school- 
master, and then touched his heart. The young man 
soughl an interview with the preacher. 

" If 1 could be satisfied," he .-aid. "that what yonhave 
taught to-night is simple truth and would secure happi- 

s, I would embrace the faith." 

The oexl evening the preacher spoke in a special man- 
ner to such doubters. Garfield was convinced, and then 

and there he publicly acknowledged his conviction.-. He 

loon became a full member of 1 1 1. ■ church his mother so 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 07 

much loved and adorned. ILe was baptized in a small 
tributary of the Chagrin river. A new light illumined 
his mind and invigorated his heart. 

" My best life," said young Garfield, " shall henceforth 
be given to the task of accomplishing the salvation of my 
fellow-mortals from degradation and unhappiness. I will 
master learning and so fit myself for the work. 

With this mighty resolution in his heart, young Gar- 
field went back to Chester, remained there during the 
spring and fall, and having completed four terms at the 
Geauga Seminary, he taught school in the winter of 
1850-51, for which service he received sixteen dollars a 
month and his board. 

Garfield had now nearly exhausted the studies at the 
seminary at Chester ; that is, he had studied, besides the 
ordinary English branches, Latin two terms, and had 
mastered, to a great extent, the grammar and the rules ; 
but he had not yet essayed to master any Latin reading- 
book. He had learned algebra thoroughly, and was well 
" up " in natural philosophy and botany. Of the latter 
study he was passionately fond, and had gathered quite an 
extensive herbarium before he left the Chester Seminary. 
His hunger for new accmisitions in knowledge continually 
increased, and he now sought instruction in a higher sem- 
inary of learning. This he found congenial to his tastes and 
religious feelings, in the newly established " Western Re- 
serve Eclectic Institute," at Hiram, Portage county, Ohio. 

This institute was founded by the Society of the Dis- 
ciples, and was opened for pupils in the year 1850. Hiram 
was a township of Western Reserve farmers. " The Cen- 
tre," says President Hinsdale, " was a cross-roads, with 
two churches and half a dozen other buildings. The In- 



THE 8I0QBAPB7 OF 

Btitute building, a plain bul substantially-built brick 
Btructure, was put on the top of a windy hill in the mid- 
dle of a corn-field. One of the cannon that General 
ddiers dragged to the city of Mexico in 1847, 
planted od the roof of the new structure, would not have 
commanded a score of farm-houses. The reasons that 
controlled the location of the school are not to us mate- 
rial. Here the school began at the time that Garfield was 
closing his studies at Chester. It had been in operation 
two terms when he offered himself for enrollment. Hi- 
ram furnished a location ; the Board of Trustees, a build- 
ing and the first teachers ; the surrounding country, 
students; !»nt the spiritual Hiram made itself. Every- 
thing was new. Society, traditions, the genius of the 
school, had to be evolved from the forces of the teachers 
and pupils, limited by the general and local environment. 

Let i ne be surprised when I say, such a school as this 

was the best of all places for young Mv. Garfield. There 
was freedom, opportunity, a large society of rapidly and 
eagerly-opening young minds, instructors who were 
learned enough to instruct him, and abundant scope for 
ability and force of character, of which he had a supera- 
bundance." 

^ 'Ming Garfield entered the Institute at Hiram in 
Aii-u-t. L851. He was then nearly nineteen years of 
tall, an athlete in form and proportions, and ambi- 
tions to learn everything. He knew himself to be "apt 
to learn," and was ready to fully test his powers of endur- 
ance, menial and physical. " 1 was then green and 
pulpy," he said. He looked with wonder and awe upon 
who bad climbed the hill of science to points which 
teemed to him dizzy. "I saw a class of three reciting 



.JAMES A. GARFIELD. 69 

in mathematics — geometry, I think," said Garfield, in an 
address eulogistic of one of his teachers. ''Iliad never 
seen a geometry, and, regarding both teacher and class 
with a feeling of reverential awe for the intellectual 
height to which they had climbed, I studied their faces so 
closely that I seem to see them now as distinctly as I saw 
them then. And it has been my good fortune since that 
time to claim them all as intimate friends. The teacher 
was Thomas Munnell, and the members of his class were 
William B. Hazen, George A. Baker and Almeda A. 
Booth." 

Miss Booth was a rare woman. It was Garfield's great 
good fortune to have her for a fellow-student, teacher, 
counsellor and friend, at that critical period of his life. 
His senior in years, of multifarious literary acquisitions, 
she was a woman whom to know was an unmixed blessing. 
She was possessed of a genial spirit, subdued by the 
suffering of bereavement in the death of one to whom 
she was affianced. She had resolved forever to maintain 
her " maiden widowhood." Everybody was drawn to 
her, and she achieved a most remarkable position in the 
Western Reserve by her unsought influence over intel- 
lectual persons. 

The more ambitious and hard-working of the students 
at Hiram were most powerfully drawn toward Miss 
Booth. To the profession of teacher she had consecrated 
her life without reserve, and pursued it with unwearied 
assiduity. She was the friend of friends to Garfield. 
There was something so sympathetic in their natures that 
they seemed at times as one being in mind and jmrpose. 
Their admiration for each other's mental and moral quali- 
ties was almost unbounded, 



7,i THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

The acquirements of Miss Booth were superior to any 
other person in the Eclectic. " In mathematics and the 
physical sciena -." Baid < rarfield, in an eulogy on her char- 
acter, •• 1 was far behind her; but we were nearly at the 

same place in Greek and Latin, each having studied it 
about three terms. She had made her home at President 
Hayden's almosl from the first, and I became a member 
<»t' his family at the beginning of the Winter Term of 
L752 '53. Thereafter, for nearly two years, she and I 
studied together and recited in the same classes (fre- 
quently without other associates) till. we had nearly com- 
pleted the classical course." 

In the Winter and Spring terms of 1853, Miss Booth 
and young G-arfield read Xeflophon's Memorabilia entire, 
and they and ten other students were so eager in their 
pur.-uit of knowledge that they hired Professor Dunshee 
to give them private lessons for a month of the summer 
vacation. ( iurfield, in his en log)', gives the following 
accounl of Miss Booth's work in the summer and fall of 
A.s they worked together, it is also a picture of 

the hard labor of the young student at the same time: 

•• Miss Booth read thoroughly, and for the first time, 
the ' Pastorals ' of Virgil — thai is, the Georgics and Bu- 
colics entire — and the firs! sis books of Homer's Iliad, 
accompanied \<\ a thorough drill in the Latin or Greek 
grammar a! each recitation. I am sure that none of those 
who recited with her would say -he was behind the fore- 
u the thoroughness of her work or the elegance of 
her translai ion. 

Qg the fall Term of I S. r »:J, -he read one hundred 

Herodotus, and about the same amount of Livy. 

During that term also, Profs. Dunshee and Hull, and 

b and I, met. ai her room, two evening- of each 




Jdlt8. GJH(FIEL(T). 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 7:J 

week, to make a joint translation of the Book of Romans. 
Prof. Dunsliee contributed his studies of the German com- 
mentators, De Wette and Tholuck ; and each of the trans- 
lators made some special study for each meeting. How 
nearly we completed the translation I do not remember ; 
but I do remember that the contributions and criticisms 
of Miss Booth were remarkable for suggestiveness and 
sound judgment. Our work was more thorough than 
rapid, for I find this entry in my diary for December 
15, 1853 : ' Translation Society sat three hours at Miss 
Booth's room, and agreed upon the translation of nine 
verses. ' 

" During the Winter Term of 1853-54, she continued 
to read Livy, and also read the whole of ' Demosthenes 
on the Crown.' The members of the class in Demosthenes 
were Miss Booth, A. Hull, C. C. Foote, and myself. 

" During the Spring Term of 1854, she read the 
' Germania and Agricola ' of Tacitus, and a portion of 
Hesiod." 

In June, 1876, General Garfield was called upon to 
pronounce an eulogy on Miss Booth, at Hiram College, 
the old " Eclectic Institute." It was a most eloquent as 
it was a heartfelt tribute to the memory of this noble 
woman, to whose influence he ever attributed so much of 
his success in life. That eulogy occupies a pamphlet of 
forty pages. Its dedication is an epitome of her char- 
acter. It reads : 

" To the thousands of noble men and women, whose 
generous ambition was awakened, whose early culture 
was guided, and whose lives have been made nobler by 
the thoroughness of her instruction, by the wisdom of her 
counsel, by the faithfulness of her life, this tribute to the 
memory of Almeda A. Booth is affectionately dedicated." 



74 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Speaking of Miss Booth's judicious labors in the Spring 
Term of L852, id the preparation of a colloquy for the pub- 
lic exercises at the end of the school year, in which Gar- 
field and a fellow-student assisted, and of her abounding 
suggestive hints, criticisms of parts, training the speakers 
and putting it on the stage, he remarked: 

•• Mv admiration of her knowledge and ability was 
unbounded. And even now, after the glowing picture 
painted upon my memory in the strong colors of youthful 
enthusiasm ha£ ! een shaded down by the colder and more 
sombre tints which a quarter of a century has added, I 
still regard her work on that occasion as possessing great 
merit.*' He said, on another occasion: "I never 
met the man whose mind I feared to grapple with ; but 
this woman could lead where I found it hard to follow." 
She undoubtedly had more influence in forming his intel- 
lectual character than any one he ever met, excepting 
President Hopkins, of "Williams College. She died in 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 75 



CHAPTER IV. 

GARFIELD AT WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 

Soon after young Garfield joined the Society of the 
Disciples he began to speak occasionally at their social re- 
ligious gatherings. These meetings were opened with 
prayer by an elder of the church, who would call upon 
different persons to speak. Garfield's readiness of utter- 
ance on every occasion was early observed. He was fre- 
quently called upon to speak, and it came to be under- 
stood that his voice, always welcome, would certainly be 
heard at these gatherings. He was evidently a "born 
orator." 

At that time there was a fervent, much-loved preacher 
among the Disciples, Father Bentley, pastor of their 
church at Hiram. He early became attached to young 
Garfield, and, perceiving his readiness in speaking, not 
only invited him to give utterance to his thoughts at oc- 
casional meetings of the Disciples, but to lead in the pub- 
lic worship on Sundays when the pastor might be absent. 
These services Garfield performed during his whole stay 
at Hiram, and it was generally supposed that he intended 
to become a regular preacher among the Disciples. Mr. 
Kirke relates the following anecdote, which indicates the 
estimate in which Father Bentley held young Garfield : 
* It was at an evening meeting of his church, and the 
young man was with him on the platform, waiting to take 
his accustomed part in the evening's exercises, when a 



: ,-, THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

political associate entered and took bim away. The good 
pastordid no1 at Brsi notice the young man's withdrawal, 
I, ui when he did, and when Garfield was half way down 
the aisle, he called to him and requested him not to go; 
then, quickly checking himself, lie said to the congrega- 
tion. "Never mind, let him go; that boy will yet be 
President of the CTnitcd States;" a remark frequently ap- 
plied to •• smart boys." 

Garfield accomplished a prodigious amount of hard 
work in those -lays. Major Bundy, in his excellent bio- 
graphical Bketch of him, says : 

"He began at Hiram in the fall of 1851, with but 
twenty-four weeks of Latin and twelve weeks of Greek. 
• for two winters in the district school. After 
the first term he taught constantly from three to six, and 
later, the whole six classes, so that he conld only stndy 
nights and mornings. In June, 1854 — less than three 
yean after he went to Hiram — he not only had fitted him- 
self to enter college, but had completed two years of the 
college <uii rsc, so as to be admitted in the junior class in 
Williams, in full and good standing. He not only paid 
his w;i\ as he went, and supported himself, but had 
•>:i\ed up' about §350. If there is any precedent for 

h achievements I never saw or heard of it. 

•• It is impossible to overestimate the forming charac- 
ter of the studies thus athletically pursued, at such a 
period of Garfield's life, with such singular enthusiasm 
and in such inspiring and elevating and refining compan- 
ionship. Such a combination of circumstances, influences 
and associations was far more valuable to the formation 
of the tastes, tendencies, aspirations, sentiments and prin- 
ciples of the future soldier and statesman than the most 
iU8 universities Of the world could have supplied. 

Mind and heart were simultaneously quickened and do- 
velopod. The whole man was made more manly bj Bub- 



JAMES A. GARFIELJZ 77 

mitting to the influence and instruction of a noble 
woman." 

Allusion is made in the last sentence to Miss Booth, the 
senior of Garfield by nine years. Another " noble woman " 
was there as a student, who exercised great influence in 
the mind, heart and whole character of young Garfield at 
that time, and of his whole future life. It was the 
modest, retiring, ever-studious, ever-sweet-tempered and 
gentle Lucretia Rudolph, whom he first met and admired 
at Geauga Seminary. We shall meet her again. 

Garfield had now prepared himself by literary acquisi- 
tions to enter the junior class of any college. He had 
been a close student at Hiram during a period of three 
years. By alternating hand work with study, as we have 
seen, he had saved half enough money to carry him 
through a two years' collegiate course. How he should 
provide the remainder of the money was an important 
question. It was satisfactorily solved in the future, as 
we shall observe. 

Another important question was also to be settled im- 
mediately and definitely. It was what college should he 
go to. It would seem that naturally he would choose 
Bethany College, in Virginia, established by the learned 
Alexander Campbell, the founder of the Sect of Dis- 
ciples of Christ. But he finally, after mature considera- 
tion, chose Williams College, situated at Williamstown, 
Massachusetts, in a most picturesque region of country. 
Why he made this choice let the following extract from a 
letter written by him reveal. It may be found in White- 
law Reid's " Ohio in the War " : 

" 'There are three reasons why I have decided tioi bo 



> THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

go to Bethany : 1st. The course of study is not so exten- 
sive or thorough as m Eastern colleges. 2d. Bethany 
leans too heavily toward Blavery. 3d. I am the son of 
Disciple parents, am one myself, and have had but little 
acquaintance with people of other views ; and haying 
always lived in the West, 1 think it will make me mure 
liberal, both in my religious and general views and senti- 
ments, to go into a new circle, where I shall be under new 
influences. These considerations led me to conclude to 
go to some New England college. I therefore wrote to 
the Presidents of Brown University, Yale, and Williams, 
setting forth the amount of study I had done, and asking 
how long it would take me to finish their course. 

" ' Their answers are now before me. All tell me I 
can graduate in two years. They are all brief, business 
notes, but President Hopkins concludes with this sen- 
tence, " If you come here we shall be glad to do what we 
can for you." Other tilings being so nearly equal, this 
sentence, which seems to be a kind of friendly grasp of 
the hand, has settled the question for me. I shall start 
for Williams next week.'" • 

Commenting upon this decision Mr. Reid says : 

" Some points in this letter of a young man about to 
start away from home to college will strike the reader as 
remarkable. Nothing could show more mature judgment 
about the matter in hand than the wise anxiety to get out 
from the Disciples' influence, and see something of other 
mm and other opinions. It was notable that one trained 
to lock upon Alexander Campbell as the master intellect 
of the churches of the day, should revolt against studying 
in his college because it leaned too strongly toward slav- 
ery. And in the final turning of the decision upon the 
little friendly commonplace thai closed one of the letters, 
we catch ;i glimpse of the warm, sympathetic nature of 
man, which much ami wide experience of the world in 
after years has never hardened. 



JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 79 

. "So, in the fall of 1854, the pupil of the Geauga 
Seminary and of the Hiram Institute applied for admission 
at the venerable doors of Williams College. He knew no 

graduate of the college, and no student attending it ; and 
of the President he only knew that he had published a 
volume of lectures which he liked, and that he had said a 
kindly word to him when ho spoke of coming. 

" The Western carpenter and village school-teacher 
received many a shock in the new sphere in which he 
now entered. On every hand he was made to feel the 
social superiority of his fellow-students. Their ways were 
free from the little awkward habits of the untrained labor- 
ing youth. Their speech was free from the uncouth 
phrases of the provincial circles in which he had moved. 
Their toilets made the handiwork of his village tailor look 
sadly shabby. Their free-handed expenditures contrasted 
strikingly with his enforced parsimony. To some tough- 
fibred hearts these would have been only petty annoy- 
ances ; to the warm, social, generous mind of young Gar- 
field they seem, from more than one indication of his 
college life that we can gather, to have been a source of 
positive anguish. But he bore bravely up, maintained the 
advance standing in the junior class to which he had been 
admitted on his arrival, and at the end of his two years' 
course bore off the metaphysical honor of his class, reck- 
oned at Williams among the highest within the gift of the 
institution to her graduating members." 

Williams College, the alma mater of President Gar- 
field, owes its origin to a bequest made by Colonel Eph- 
raim Williams, who fell in battle with the French and 
Indians, near Lake George, in 1755. Before going to the 
held he made his will, in which, after certain provisions, 
he directed "that the remainder of his lands should be 
sold at the discretion of his executors, within five years 
after an established peace, and that the interest of 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

the moneys arising from the sale, and also the interests of 
his aot< - and bonds, Blionld be applied to the support of a 
Kjhool in a township west of Fort Massachusetts, pro- 
vide! thai Baid township fall within the limits of Massa- 
chusetts, after running the line between Massachusetts 
and NTew York (then in dispute), and provided the said 
township, when incorporated, be called WilKamstown." 

Under the provisions of this will a free school was 
established in 1 7 s ."., thirty years after the bequest was 
made. By an act of incorporation nine trustees were ap- 
pointed. A lottery was authorized by the Legislature 
for the purpose of raising funds for erecting a school 
building. The town and the inhabitants individually 
raised a sufficient sum to erect a brick building, in 1790, 
and the free school was opened in 1791, with Rev. Ebe- 
nezer Fitch as principal. This institution was incorpo- 
rated as a college in 1793, with the title of Williams's 
Hall. The property vested in the free school was trans- 
ferred to this corporation, and Mr. Fitch entered upon his 
duties as its first President in October, 1793. From that 
time thecollege increased in size and usefulness, until now 
it holds a high rank among the literary institutions of the 
republic. 

The attractive Lucretia Rudolph, whose family had 
settled near Hiram to enjoy the educational advantages of 
the Eclectic Institute, was a student in this institution 
while Garfield was there. She became his pupil. She 
recited Latin and Greek to him, as well as geometry and 
other studies. They read together, and were in perfect 
sympathy in aspirations after knowledge. Tiny became 
genial companions. The bud of mutual respect, 
which appeared at Chester^ expanded into profound 



jami:s i. GARFIELb. 81 

esteem and friendship at Hiram. This ripened into love, 
and just before young Garfield departed for Williams 
College, they were betrothed, with the understanding 
that their nuptials should be postponed until his pecuniary 
condition would insure safety in taking such an important 
Step. "With the plighted love of this young girl, thee 
freshly spoken, and buoyant with hope, Garth!, i 
reached Williamstown in June, 1854. 

The natural scenery in the region of the college gave 
the new junior infinite delight. He had never seen a 
mountain before he entered the State of New "i ork on 
his journey to "Williamstown ; only the monotonous 
undulating country of the "Western Reserve was familiar 
to his eye. The spurs of the Green Mountains environed 
his new home, and spread out into the famous " Berk- 
shire Hills/' "With the greatest enthusiasm he climbed 
old " Grey lock " again and again, and thoroughly ex- 
plored every glen and valley in the neighborhood during 
the long summer vacation which succeeded his successful 
examination for entrance into the junior class. 

The college library, containing more than ten thou- 
sand volumes, was at once a wonder and delight to him. 
He divided his time between study in its cloisters and in 
the light and life of nature without, during that vacation. 
He had read only a few r extracts from the writings of 
Shakespeare ; now he perused them from title page to 
colophon with such diligence and intensity of interest, that 
he could ever afterwards recite whole pages of their con- 
tents. He encountered works on English history and gov- 
ernment, its poetry and its jurisprudence, with equal zest. 
He read serious works intemperately for several months 
and incurred the penalty of mental dyspepsia. Then he 



82 THE BIO&RAPHY OF 

adopted a Balutary course of treatment in the reading of 
abonl one work of fiction a month and recovered his intel- 
lectual health. 

Garfield was intensely interested in every phase of 
college life. He entered with zeal into the operations of 
Its literary societies, and became President of the Philo- 
logian Society. During his first year at Williams, he 
completed his classical studies, and became so proficient 
in German that he could read Goethe and Schiller 
readily and speak the language quite fluently. 

During the winter vacation of 1854-'55, Garfield. 
taught writing to a class in North Pownall, Vermont, 
and at the end of the college year, in June, 1855, he 
returned to Ohio, to visit his mother, then residing with 
her daughter at Solon. Cuyahoga county. 

Now came up the question of procuring funds to 
pay the expenses of another year at college. Two plans 
presented themselves: one to borrow enough for the 
purpose, the other to set to work as a teacher and earn 
the money, and so interrupt the course of his college life 
and postpone Ins graduation. He chose a third plan and 
was successful. lie insured his life for eight hundred 
dollar.-, his brother Thomas undertaking to furnish the 
fund- in installments. Thomas was unable to do so, 
when Doctor Robinson, of Hiram, agreed to advance the 
money and look the insurance policy as security, "l oung 
Garfield said to him, "If I live I'll pay you; if I die 

you will not lose anything." 

Full of hope and enthusiasm, Garfield returned to 

Williamstown in time for the opening of the Fall term. 
In 1855. lie was one of the editors of the " "Williams 



JAlffla A. GARFIELD. 83 

Quarterly," a college magazine of high character, of 
which he said, in the opening number of the year: 

" It proposes a kind of intellectual tournament where 
Ave may hurl the lance and wield the sword, and thus pre- 
pare for the conflicts of life. It shall he our aim to keep 
the lists still open and the arena clear, that the knights 
of the quill may learn to hurl the lance and wield the 
sword of thought, and thus he ready for sterner duties. 
We shall also endeavor to decorate the arena with all the 
flowers that our own gardens afford, and thus render the 
place more pleasant and inviting. We should remember, 
however, that it is no honor or profit merely to appear in 
the arena, but the wreath is for those who contend" 

Young Garfield's contributions to the " Quarterly " 
were numerous, varied in character, and always marked 
by vigorous thought and perspicuity and lucidity of 
expression. They were sometimes in verse, but more 
often in prose. In the latter they consisted of essays, 
literary reviews, philosophical disquisitions and miscel- 
laneous topics. I give below extracts from three of his 
papers published in the " Quarterly," two of prose and 
the other of poetry, as illustrative of his style of writing 
at that early period of his life. Writing on the subject 
of " The Province of History, he said : 

" For every village, state and nation there is an aggre- 
gate of native talent which God has given, and by which, 
together with his Providence, he leads that nation on, and 
thus leads the world. In the light of these truths we 
affirm that no man can understand the history of any 
nation, or of the world, who does not recognize in it the 
power of God, and behold His stately goings forth as He 
walks among the nations. It is His hand that is moving 
the vast superstructure of human history, and, though 



^4 mi: H/otth'M'iiY or 

bul one of the windows were unfurnished, like that of 
the Arabian palace, yet all the powers of earth could 
never complete il without the aid of the Divine Archi- 
tect. 

"To employ another figure — the world's history is a 
divine poena, of which the history of every nation is a 
canto, and of every man a word. Its strains have been 
pealin down the centuries, and, though there have 

mingled the discord of roaring cannon and dying 
men, vet to the Christian, Philosopher and Historian — 
the humble listener — there has been a divine melody 
running through the song, which speaks of hope and' 
halcyon days to come. The record of every orphan's 
sigh, of eyery widow's prayer, of every noble deed, of 
every honest heart-throb for the right, is swelling that 
gentle strain : and when, at last, the great end is attained 
--when the lost image of God is restored to the human 
soul ; when the church anthem can be pealed forth with- 
out a discordant note, then will angels join in the chorus 
and all the sons of God shout for joy." 

lie remarked, as preparatory to these observations, 
that there were two points which the historian should 
have before him : 

" First — The valuation of facts to each other and the 
whole bod} of history ; and 

•• Second— The tendency of the whole toward some 
given end.*' 

The following is from a review of the life and writings 
of the gifted young German poet, Karl Theodore Korner, 

author of a volume of beautiful martial lyrics entitled 
"The Lyre and Sword," and who fell in battle near 

nberg.in 1813, when he was only twenty years of age, 
fighting against Napoleon the Great: 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 87 

'• The greater part of our modern literature beuio evi- 
dent marks of the haste which characterizes all the move- 
ments of the age ; but, in reading the older authors, we 
are impressed with the idea that they enjoyed the most 
comfortable leisure. Many books we can read in a railroad 
car, and feel a harmony between the rushiug of the train 
and the haste of the author ; but to enjoy the older authors 
we need the quiet of a winter evening — an easy chair before 
a cheerful fire, and all the equanimity of spirits one can 
command. 

" Then the genial good nature, the rich fullness, the 
persuasive eloquence of those old masters will fall upon us 
like the warm, glad sunshine, and afford those hours of 
calm contemplation in which the spirit may expand with 
generous growth, and gain deep and comprehensive views. 
The pages of friendly old Goldsmith come to us like a 
golden autumn day, when every object which meets the 
eye bears all the impress oi the completed year, and the 
beauties of an autumnal forest." 

The following is an illustration of young Garfield's 
poetic genius, copied from the pages of the " Quarterly," 
and entitled 

MEMORY. 

"'Tis beauteous night ; the stars look brightly down 
Upon the earth, decked in her robe of snow. 
No light gleams at the window save my own, 
Which gives its cheer to midnight and to me. 
And now with noiseless step sweet Memory comes, 
And leads me gently through her twilight realms. 
What poet's tuneful lyre has ever sung, 
Or delicatest pencil e'er portrayed 
The enchanted shadowy land where Memory dwells ? 
It has its valleys, cheerless, lone and drear, 
Dark-shaded by the mournful cypress tree. 
And yet its sunlir mountain-tops are bathed 
In heaven's own blue. Upon its craggy cliffs, 
4 



88 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Robed in the dreamy light of distant years, 

Arc clustered joys serene of other days ; 

Dpon its gently slbping hillsides bend 

The weeping willows o'er the sacred dust 

Of dear departed ones; and yet in that land, 

Where'er our footsteps fall upon the shore, 

They that were sleeping rise from out the dust 

Of death's lung, silent years, and round us stand, 

As erst they did before the prison tomb 

Received their clay within its voiceless halls. 

The heavens that bend above that land are hung 

With clouds of various hues ; some dark and chill, 

Surcharged with sorrow r , cast their sombre shade 

Upon the sunny, joyous land below ; 

Others are floating through the dreamy air ; 

White as the falling snow, their margins tinged 

"With gold and crimson hues ; their shadows fall 

Upon the flowery meads and sunny slopes, 

Soft as the shadows of an angel's wing. 

When the rough battle of the day is done, 

And evening's peace falls gently on the heart, 

I bound away across the noisy years, 

Unto the utmost verge of Memory's land, 

Where earth and sky in dreamy distance meet, 

And Memory dim with dark oblivion joins ; 

Where woke the first-remembered sounds that fell 

Upon the ear in childhood's early mom ; 

And wandering thence, along the rolling years. 

1 • the shadow of my former self 

(Gliding from childhood up to man's estate. 

The path of youth winds down through many a vale 

And on the brink of many a dread abyss, 

From out whose darkness comes no ray of light, 

Save thai a phantom dances o'er the gulf, 

And beckon- toward the verge. Again the path 

la o'er a summit where the sunbeams fall ; 

I thus in lighl and -hade, sunshine and gloom, 
Sorrow and joy, this life-path leads along." 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. $9 

Garfield's second winter vacation was enjoyed at Poes- 
tenkill, (a Dutch name for " Foaming Creek") a little 
post- village of about throe hundred inhabitants, at that 
time, and situated a few miles from Troy, New York. 
He was attracted thither by the Rev. Mr. Streeter, a Dis- 
ciples preacher from Ohio, who presided over a congre- 
gation in Poestenkill. There, as in North Pownall in 
Vermont, the year before, Garfield organized a writing 
class of about twenty young men and young women, and 
preached occasionally in the meeting-house of his friend. 
He visited Troy frequently and became acquainted with 
the members of the board of education and many of the 
teachers in the public schools in that city. 

One day he was surprised by receiving an invitation 
from the school authorities in Troy, to take a position 
immediately in the public schools in that city, at a salary 
far greater than any he had dreamed of receiving in 
Ohio. It would enable him to pay his debts, marry 
Lucretia Eudolph speedily and give him the advantage of 
a comfortable residence in an Eastern city. The tempta- 
tion was certainly great, but it did not move him from his 
fixed purpose. Yet he carefully considered the matter. 
To the gentleman who made the proposition, he said 
while walking on a hill in the northern suburbs of Troy, 
called Mount Olympus : 

" You are not Satan, and I am not Jesus ; but we are 
upon the mountain, and you have tempted me power- 
fully. I think I must say Get thee behind me. I am 
poor, and the salary would soon pay my debts, and place 
me in a position of independence. But there are two 
objections : I would not accomplish my resolution to 
complete a college course, and should be crippled intel- 



90 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

factually for life. Then, my roots are all fixed in Ohio, 
where people know me and I know them, and this trans- 
planting might not succeed as -well in the long run as to 
go hack home and work for smaller pay." 

Garfield was graduated at Williams College in June, 
185G, when between twenty-four and twenty -five years of 
age. He carried away from it the highest attainable 
honor, that of a character unstained in the least degree, 
and the love and confidence of the President, the faculty 
and his class. He was uniformly a victor in all the in- 
tellectual encounters to .which he was subjected. Those 
who knew him best at that time, have ever been loudest 
in his praise because of his manliness, sweetness and 
equanimity of temper, gentleness, truthfulness and un- 
swerving loyalty to every principle of honor. 

Among Garfield's warmest friends at "Williams were 
President Mark Hopkins and Professor P. A. Chad- 
bourne, the latter afterwards President of the institution. 
They were ever ready at all times to not only speak a good 
word for him, but to express their admiration for his ex- 
alted intellectual and moral character. 

" He was not sent to college," remarked President 
Hopkins, in a letter written in 1880, " but came. . . . 
He not only came, but made sacrifices to come. His 
work was from a vital force, and so was without fret or 
worry." 

( larfield was represented by his tutors and companions at 
Williams as one <>f the most industrious, methodical and per- 
sistent of students. Sis physical powers were perfect. lie 
made it his first business to master the studies of the class- 
poom. He was broad in his scholarship, exceedingly at- 
tached to books, hut was never regarded as a recluse or a 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 91 

bibliomaniac. He was fond of athletic sports but did not 
frequently indulge in them ; but, passionately fond of the 
works of nature in all their multifarious forms, he tra- 
versed all the beautiful and romantic region around Wil- 
liamstown, and made himself familiar with every locality. 

Young Garfield had a quick eye and appreciation for 
anything ludicrous. On one occasion he celebrated in 
verse a trick of the Freshmen played on the Sophomores. 
It was a clever parody on Tennyson's " Charge of the 
Light Brigade," and was published in the " Quarterly," as 
follows : 

" Bottles to right of them, 
Bottles to left of them, 
Bottles in front of them, 

Fizzled and sundered, 
Ent'ring with shout and yell, 
Boldly they drank and well, 
They caught the Tartar then; 
Oh, what a perfect sell ! 

Sold — the half hundred. 
Grinned all the dentals bare, 
Swung all their caps in air, 
Uncorking bottles there, 
Watching the Freshmen while 

Every one wondered ; 
Plunged in tobacco smoke, 
With many a desperate stroke, 
Dozens of bottles broke, 
Then they came back, but not, 

But not the half hundred" 

Another feature in Garfield's course of study at Wil- 
liams was evenness, a trait of his character in all his life 
career. He seemed to have no preference for any one 



02 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

study. His intellectual capacity and sound common sense 
was applicable to any subject, and lie naturally, by his 
superior maturity, had a readier and tinner grasp of the 
higher studies than most of his classmates. Because of 
this excellence he was appointed to deliver the metaphysi- 
cal oration at his graduation, then one of the highest 
honors of the class. The subject of his oration was 
'• Matter and Spirit," and attracted great attention. He 
performed the duty well, and bore off the prize. His 
labor was always uniform, never spasmodic, and no pre- 
tensions to genius appeared. His was essentially a " sound 
mind in a sound body." 

It was during his last term at Williams that Garfield 
made his first political speech which attracted attention. 
In the debates of the Philologian Society he had fre- 
quently discussed the various exciting questions of the 
day — the Kansas-Nebraska question ; the dangers to be 
apprehended from the influx of foreigners and the domi- 
nation of the Eoman Catholic Church ; the Personal Lib- 
erty bills and their constitutionality ; the desirability of 
an elective judiciary ; the troubles in and treatment of 
Kansas, et cetera. In all these eager debates he invari- 
ably took sides with the oppressed and weaker party. 

Garfield was opposed to the " Native American Party," 
or "Know-Nothing Party," because of its narrowness. 
He had not taken sides as a voter, though nearly four 
years pasl his majority, with either the Democratic or the 
Whig party, for lie regarded them as equally corrupt and 
untrustworthy, because of their taint with the sin of pro- 
slavery tendencies; but when the Republican party — 
a new party — arose, evidently in real earnest in its oppo- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 93 

sition to the slave power, he gladly joined its ranks, with 
his mind free from bias as to the old party leaders. His 
first political speech, above alluded to, was delivered before 
a large meeting gathered in one of the class-rooms of the 
college in support of the nomination of John C. Fremont 
for the Presidency of the United States. It was a college 
ratification meeting. 

Garfield had turned his attention somewhat to politics 
before, of which there is an illustration in a poem entitled 
" Sam," published in volume III. of the " Quarterly.'' 
It was delivered on the occasion of the Adelphic Union 
Exhibition, in 1855, in which he satirized the Know- 
Nothing Party. In the convention at Chicago, in 1880, 
at which Garfield was nominated for the Presidency, were 
two members who were his fellow-members of the Philo- 
logian Society of Williams — W. S. B. Hopkins, of Wor- 
cester, Massachusetts, and General Ferris Jacobs, of 
Delhi, New York. 

The genuine and abiding affection for Garfield dis- 
played by every member of the class of 1856 was most 
remarkable. Each of the survivors has some pleasant 
reminiscence of his cheery nature, his rich social qualities, 
the perfect soundness of his intellectual and moral charac- 
ter and his unostentatious piety. One relates that during 
his junior year he was engaged in a public debate be- 
tween representatives of two literary societies. The 
speaker who preceded him on the opposite side produced 
an elaborate illustration from Don Quixote. Garfield, in 
reply, raised a laugh against his opponent try comparing 
him to the knight attacking the windmill. 

" Or rather," said Garfield, " it would be more appro- 



94 TIIE BIOGRAPHY OF 

priate to say that the gentleman resembles the windmill 
attacking the knight." 

At the supper following the debate Garfield was 
rallied on bis extensive acquaintance with the classics. 
He laughingly replied that he never read " Don Quixote," 
and had heard only an allusion to the mad knight's 
assault upon the flying arms of the innocent mill. 

Another says, " We used to have an annual holiday 
palled ' Mountain Day.' At the close of one, a Fourth of 
July evening, on the summit of old Greylock, seven miles 
from the college, there was a goodly gathering of students 
about their camp-fire, when Garfield, the recognized 
leader, taking a copy of the Xew Testament from his 
pocket, said, ' Boys, I am accustomed to read a chapter 
with my absent mother every night; shall I read aloud?' 
All assenting, he read to us the chapter his mother 
in Ohio was then reading, and called on a classmate to 
pray." 

President Chadbourne of Williams College said, during 
the Presidential campaign in 1880 : 

" The college life of General Garfield was so perfect, 
so rounded, so pure, so in accordance with what it ought 
to be in all respects, that I can add nothing to it by eulo- 
gizing him. It was a noble college life. There are no 
stories to l»e told o] Genera] Garfield as a college student. 
On the contrary, everything about him was high and noble 
and manlj ; the man in college gave promise of what the 
man is to-day. Ami so, when some charges were made 
against him some years ago, I wrote to General Garfield, 
and have paid in speeches since that time, that when a 
young man goes through a college course without exhibit- 
ing a mean or dishonest trait, and then goes out and lives 
so as to impress upon other men the idea that he has been 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 95 

true at all times and in all places, it will take a great deal 
of proof to convince me that that man has forsaken the 
path he trod so long. And I have seen nothing to shake 
my confidence in General Garfield from the day he entered 
college until to-day, as he stands up before the people as a 
candidate for President of the United States." 



05 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER V. 

GARFIELD AT HIRAM COLLEGE — BEGINNING OF POLITICAL 

LIFE. 

( >.v graduating at Williams College in the summer of 
1856, Mr. Garfield was chosen Professor of Ancient 
Languages in Hiram Eclectic Institute, or, as it was soon 
called, Hiram College. The institution was poor and the 
pay small, but he devoted his best energies in building it 
up. Very soon it felt the influence of his presence and 
his wonderful activity. 

Hiram remained the same lonely, dull, little country 
village f;hree miles from a railroad station, but the college, 
from its seat on a hill, overlooked fully twenty miles of a 
dairy country southward. The village had grown a little, 
and now contained fifty or sixty houses. These were 
clustered around a village green in New England style, 
in the centre of which stood the red brick college edifice. 

Garfield put his whole soul into the college work and 
infused new life into the institution. His labors were 
conspicuous in all directions. He taught his classes 
thoroughly and delivered scientific lectures ("learning 
his science as he wenl along"), from which he gained con- 
siderable pecuniary reward. Besides other duties, he 
tonally preached for the Disciple.-; around Hiram. 
90 delivered political speeches; and, while teaching, 
lecturing, preaching and Bpeech-making, he was studying 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 97 

as hard as ever. lie continued and completed his law- 
studies, begun while at Williams, and was admitted to the 
bar of Cuyahoga county in 1860. 

The next year (1857) Mr. Garfield, then twenty six 
years of age, was appointed President of H.rarn College. 
With this enlargement of his sphere of duty and respon- 
sibility his activities increased. He taught Latin and 
Greek, the higher mathematics, history, philosophy, Eng- 
lish literature, English rhetoric, criticism, and occasionally 
one of the natural sciences. 

Many young men and women were then preparing in 
Hiram College for admission into higher institutions of 
learning, going up to the junior and sometimes senior 
year in their preparation. Those wishing to pursue se- 
lected studies were allowed to do so. Mr. Garfield, 
though enthusiastic in particular lines of study, seemed to 
be competent to teach almost any branch of collegiate 
learning. His intellectual power was soon felt all over 
the Western .Reserve. Its salutary influence was acknowl- 
edged everywhere, and the young President of Hiram 
College was looked up to by multitudes as a mentor. 

Under Garfield's administration the attendance at 
Hiram College was soon doubled, the standard of scholar- 
ship was raised, the faculty were strengthened and enthu- 
siasm was visible in every department. He was an in- 
spiration to every man and woman in the college. Mass 
Booth was there still and an ever-helpful companion for 
him in his labors. His counsel and encouragement was 
freely given in the institution and out of it. With a true 
missionary spirit he continually sought new subjects for 
solicitude. He might see a rough boy, with unpromising 
exterior, but if he had a superior mind Garfield seemed to 



98 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

discover it by intuition, and would encourage him and 
his parents to make efforts to obtain an education. To 
this disinterested watchfulness and ready help of Mr. 
Garfield many men of distinction in the various depart- 
ments oi human activity to-day freely accord the secret 
of their success. One of these is President Burke A. 
Hinsdale, a successor of Garfield in the headship of Hiram 
College, who, as a pupil there in 1S56, won the warm 
friendship of the great teacher. President Hinsdale wrote 
to a friend : 

"My real acquaintance with Garfield did not begin 
until the fall of 1856, when he returned from Williams' 
College. He then found me out, drew near to me, and 
entered into all my troubles and difficulties pertaining to 
questions of the future. In a greater or less degree this 
was true of his relations to his pupils generally. There 
are hundreds of these men and women scattered over the 
world to-day who cannot find language strong enough to 
express their feelings in contemplating Garfield as their old 
instructor, adviser, and friend. 

" Since L856 my relations with him have been as close 
and confidential as they could be with any man, and much 
closer and more confidential than they have been with any 
other man. I do not say that it would be possible for me 
to know anybody better than I know him, and I know 
that be po all the greal elements of character in an 

extraordinary degree. His interest in humanity has al- 
been as broad as humanity itself, while his lively in- 
terest in young men and women, especially if they were 
straggling in narrow circumstances to obtain an education, 
is a characteristic known as widely over the world as the 
footsteps of Hiram boys and girls have wandered. 

"The help thai he furnished hundreds in the way of 
suggestions, teaching, encouragement, inspiration, and 
stimulus, was most valuable. I have repeatedly Baid that, 




6* 

b 
5 



M 
O 

hi 

o 

fin 

o 



L 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 101 

as respects myself, I am more indebted to him for all that 
I am, and for what I have done in the intellectual field, 
than to any other man that ever lived. His power over 
students was not so much that of a drill-master or disci- 
plinarian as that of one who was able to inspire and ener- 
gize young people by his own intellectual and moral force." 

President Hinsdale had left Hiram College in the 
Fall of 1856 in great distress of mind, caused by mis- 
givings concerning the future of his life. He was past 
nineteen years of age, and was in straitened circum- 
stances. He obtained the position of teacher of a district 
school, with the hope of imitating Garfield, who was 
much interested in him, in efforts to obtain a thorough 
education. In his distress of mind he wrote to this 
friend, then Professor at Hiram, on the subject of his 
anxiety. The reply, which gave him great relief, is one 
that might be read and pondered by all young men in like 
circumstances with benefit. In the course of a lecture 
delivered at the college on the day after Garfield's nomi- 
nation for the presidency of the United States, President 
Hinsdale read the letter. It is as follows : — 

"Hiram, January 15, 1857. 

" My dear Brother Burke : — I was made very glad 
a few days since by the receipt of your letter. It was a 
very acceptable New Year's present, and I take pleasure 
in responding. You have given a vivid picture of a com- 
munity in which intelligence and morality have been neg- 
lected, and I am glad you are disseminating the light. 

" Certainly, men must have some knowledge in order 
to do right. God first said ' Let there be light.' After- 
wards he said, 'It is very good.' lam glad to hear of 
your success in teaching, but I approach with much more 
concern the consideration of the question you have pro- 



102 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

posed. Brother mine, it is not a question to be discussed 
in the spirit of debate, but to be thought over and prayed 
over as a question ' out of which are the issues of life.' 
You will agree with me that every one must decide and 
direct his own course in life, and the only service friends 
can afford is to give us the data from which we must draw 
our own conclusions and decide our course. 

" Allow me, then, to sit beside you and look over the 
field of life and see what are its aspects. I am not one of 
those who advise every one to undertake the work of a 
liberal education ; indeed, I believe that in two-thirds of 
the cases, such advice would be unwise. The great body 
of the people will be, and ought to be, intelligent farmers 
and mechanics, and in many respects these pass the most 
independent and happy lives. But God has endowed 
some of His children with desires and capabilities for a 
more extended field of labor and influence, and so every 
life should be shaped according to ' what the man hath.' 

"Now, in reference to yourself. / know you have 
capabilities for occupying positions of high and important 
trust in the scenes of active life ; and I am sure you will 
not call it flattery in me, nor egotism in yourself, to say 
so. Tell me, Burke, do you not feel a spirit stirring 
within you that longs to know, to do and to dare, to hold 
converge with the great world of thought, and hold* before 
you. some high and noble object to which the vigor of your 
mind and the strength of your arm maybe given? Do 
you not have longings like these, which you breathe to no 
one, and which you feel must be heeded, or you will pass 
through life unsatisfied and regretful ? I am sure you have 
them, and they will forever cling round your heart till 
you obey their mandate. They are the voice of that na- 
ture which God has given you, and which, when obeyed, 
will bless you and your fellow- men. 

"Now, all this might be true, and yet it might be 
your duty not to follow that course. If your duty to your 
father or your mother demands that you take another, I 
shall rejoice to see you taking that other course. The 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 103 

path of duty is where we all ought to walk, be that where 
it may. But I sincerely hope you will not, without an 
earnest struggle, give up a course of liberal study. Sup- 
pose you could not begin your study again till after your 
majority? It will not be too late then, but you will gain 
in many respects ; you Avill have more maturity of mind 
to appreciate whatever you may study. You may say you 
will be too old to begin the course, but how could you 
spend the earlier days of life ? We should not measure 
life by the days and moments that we pass on earth. 

" ' The life is measured by the soul's advance; 

The enlargement of its powers; the expanded field 

Wherein it ranges, till it burns and glows 

With heavenly joy, with high and heavenly hope.' 

" It need be no discouragement that you are obliged to 
hew your own way, and pay your own charges. You can 
go to school two terms every year, and pay your own way. 
I know this, for I did so, when teachers' wages were much 
lower than they are now. It is a great truth, that * where 
(i -a jfj n w ill there is a way.' It may be that by and by 
your lather could assist you. It may be that even now he 
could let you commence on your resources, so that you 
could begin immediately. Of this you know, and I do 
not. I need not tell you how glad I should be to assist 
you in your work ; but if you cannot come to Hiram 
while I am here, I shall still hope to hear that you are de- 
termined to go on as soon as the time will permit. Will 
you not write me your thoughts on this whole subject, and 
tell me your prospects ? We are having a very good time 
in the school this winter. Give my love to Kolden and 
Louisa, and believe me always your friend and brother, 

"J. A. Garfield. 

«p. S.— Miss Booth and Mr. Ehodes send their love 
to you. Henry James was here, and made me a good visit 
a few days ago. He is doing well. He and I have talked 



101 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

of going to see you this winter. I fear Ave cannot do it. 
Eow far is it from here ? Burke, was it prophetic that 
my last word to you ended on the picture of the Capitol 
of Congress ? * " J. A. G." 

One of Garfielcl's pupils at Hiram College was the 
Rev. J. L. Darsie, now of Danbury, Connecticut, who also 
acted as janitor for a while. He has put on record the 
following testimony concerning some of his recollections 
of Garfield's personal appearance and conduct at Hiram 
at that time : — 

"I attended the Western Reserve Institute when Gar- 
field was Principal, and I recall vividly his method of 
teaching. He took very kindly to me, and assisted me in 
various ways, because I was poor, and was janitor of the 
buildings, and swept them out in the morning and built 
the fires, as he had done only six years before, when he 
was a pupil at the same college. 

"He was full of animal spirits, and used to run out on 
the green almosl every day and play cricket with his 
scholars. He was a tall, strong man, but dreadfully awk- 
ward. Every now and then he would get a hit, and he 
muffed his ball and lost his hat as a regular thing. He 
left-handed, too, and that made him seem all the 
clumsier. lint he was most powerful and very quick, and 
it was easj for us to understand how it was that he had 
acquired the reputation of whipping all the other mule- 
drivers on the canal, and of making himself the hero of 
that thoroughfare when he followed its tow-path ten years 
earlier. 

" No mat in- how old the pupils were, Garfield always 

Presidenl iim .hi. ■ explained this last sentence as referring to 
pie little delineation of the Capitol al Washington, on a cornerof the 
Congress note paper on which the letter was written. The last words 
of hi- letter came exactly across the picture of the Capitol. This 
seeming prophecy was not fulfilled until several years afterwards, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 1Q5 

called us by our first names, and kept himself on the 
most familiar terms with all. He played with us freely, 
and we treated him out of the class-room just about as we 
did oue another. Yet he was a most strict disciplinarian, 
and enforced the rules like a martinet. He combined an 
affectionate and confiding manner with respect for order 
in a most successful way. If he wanted to speak to a 
pupil, either for reproof or approbation, he would gener- 
ally manage to get oue arm around him, and draw him 
close up to him. He had a peculiar way of shaking hands 
too, giving a twist to your arm and drawing you right up 
to him. 

"This sympathetic manner has helped him to ad- 
vancement. When I was janitor, he used sometimes to 
stop me and ask my opinion about this and that, as if 
seriously advising with me. I can see now that my opin- 
ion could not have been of any value, and that he proba- 
bly asked me partly to increase my self-respect, and partly 
to show me that he felt an interest in me. I certainly 
was his friend all the firmer for it. 

"I remember once asking him what was the best way 
to pursue a certain study, and he said, ' Use several text- 
books. Get the views of different authors as you advance. 
In that way you can plough a broader furrow. I always 
study in that way.' He tried hard to teach us to observe 
carefully and accurately. He broke out one day in the 
midst of a lesson with, ' Henry, how many posts are there 
under the building down-stairs?' Henry expressed his 
opinion, and the question went around the class, hardly 
any one getting it right. Then it was, ' How many boot- 
scrapers are there at the door ?' ' How many windows in 
the building ? ' ' How many trees in the field ? ' What 
were the colors of different rooms, and the peculiarities 
of any familiar objects ? He was the keenest observer I 
ever saw. I think he noticed and numbered every button 
on our coats. 

" A friend of mine was walking with him through 
Cleveland one day, when Garfield stopped and darted 



106 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

down a cellar-way, asking his companion to follow, and 
briefly pausing to explain himself. The sign ' Saws and 
Files' was over the door, and in the depths was heard a 

regular clicking sound. ' I think this fellow is cutting 
files,' said he, 'and 1 have never seen a file cut.' Down 
thev went, and, sure enough, there was a man recutting 
an old file, and they stayed ten minutes and found out all 
al>' tut the process. Garfield would never go by anything 
without understanding it. 

" Mr. Garfield was very fond of lecturing to the school. 
He spoke two or three times a week, on all manner of 
topics, generally scientific, though sometimes literary or 
historical. He spoke with great freedom, never writing 
out what he had to say, and I now think that his lectures 
were a rapid compilation of his current reading, and that 
he threw it into this form partly for the purpose of im- 
pressing it on his own mind. 

" His facility of speech was learned when he was a pupil 
at Hiram. The societies had a rule that every student 
should take his stand on t lie platform and speak for five 
minutes on any topic suggested at the moment by the 
audi. nee. It was a very trying ordeal. Garfield broke 
down badly the first two times he tried to speak, but per- 
sisted, and was at last, when he went to Williams, one of 
the best of the five-minute speakers. When he returned 
as Principal, his readiness was striking and remarkable." 

When he became President of Hiram College, Gar- 
field felt that the conditions of his betrothal to Lucretia 
Rudolph were nearly fulfilled, and their marriage was 
not much longer deferred. When he started for Williams 
College she led Hiram f<>r Cleveland to engage in 
teaching in the public Bchools of that city, and there 
to wait fur her lover \<> become sufficiently established in 
life t" render their nuptials a prudent measure. 

Lucretia was the daughter of an eastern farmer of 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 107 

German descent, named Zcbulon Rudolph, who had 
settled in Cuyahoga county, Ohio. Her mother was 
Arabella Mason, a descendant of an old Connecticut 
family, but a native of Hartford, Windsor county, Ver- 
mont. They were thrifty people, appreciated the advan- 
tages of education, and gave Lucretia every opportunity 
in their power to acquire knowledge, which the region 
afforded. She and young Garfield were married on 
November 11, 1858, by the Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, President 
of the Western Reserve College at Hudson, Ohio. A 
neat little cottage was bought by him in front of the 
college at Hiram, and there their most happy wedded life 
was begun in a very humble way. They had very few of 
this world's goods, but were very rich in love, mutual 
tastes, energy, love of knowledge and perfect accord in 
sentiment upon all questions of life. 

The lives of Mr. Garfield and his wife exhibit a con- 
tinuous and most remarkable growth. They kept up 
their classical studies for years ; and even to the time of 
his elevation to the Presidency of the United States 
they often resumed, before their domestic hearth, the 
studies, of their earlier years. 

One evening, a few years ago, after a day of toil with 
her children (for she was a model mother) she expressed 
a wish that she might revive her knowledge of Latin suf- 
ficient to teach it to her two boys. The next day her 
husband gave her a copy of Caesar's Commentaries and told 
her he would hear her recite a page that evening. It was 
done fairly, and from that time she continued to instruct 
her children, and carried her two boys through the Latin 
in a manner to fit the eldest for college. He is now (1881) 



108 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

a Freshman in Williams College, from which his father 
graduated twenty-five years ago. 

Mr. Garfield held the position of Principal of the 
West irii Reserve Eclectic Institute or President of 
Hiram College (which are convertible terms), until he 
entered the Union army as a volunteer in 1861, to battle 
for the defence of the life of the Republic. Hoping that 
he might return, the board of trustees kept him nominally 
at the head of the institution two years longer, when that 
hope faded. In 1864 and 1865, his name appears in the 
catalogue of the college as trustee and as advisory prin- 
cipal and lecturer. His last service as instructor in Hiram 
College was given in an admirable series of ten lectures, 
on " Social Science," delivered before the pupils in the 
Spring of 1871. 

Who shall estimate the value or measure the far- 
reaching influence of the life of Mr. Garfield as a teacher 
of the young, especially during his presidency of the college 
at Hiram from 1857 to 1861 ? But it must not be sup- 
I" i8ed that his field of activity was bounded bj T the college 
curriculum, the college walls or the college campus. 
" With all the rest," says President Hinsdale, "he was a 
preacher. As the Disciples were a new body, originating 
in a revolt from the old theological and ecclesiastical 
Btandards, they gave more room to personal force and 
inspiration than the older and more conventional churches. 
Presumably, he never intended to devote himself to the 
mini-try. Certainly lie did not after returning from 
college. He never bad any other ordination from his 
brethren than their general approval and encouragement. 

"From L856 to 1863 hie pulpit ministrations were in 



JAMES A. 0ARF1KI !>. 109 

large request. Recalling his sermons at the distance of 
twenty years, I should say they were stronger in the 
ethical than in the theological and ecclesiastical elements. 
What is more, in 1858 he entered his name in a Cleveland 
law firm, as a student at law, but he carried on his studies 
by himself at Hiram. Then he lectured, with great 
acceptance, before popular audiences, on scientific, literary, 
educational, and moral topics. He was in great request 
as an instructor and lecturer at teachers' institutes. 

"He became greatly interested in geology, and ex- 
pounded the facts and principles of that science before 
numerous audiences. 

"In the winter of 1859-60, he was drawn into a 
public debate with a Mr. Denton, an anti-Christian and 
spiritualistic lecturer and debater. The subject was the 
development theory. That was before Mr. Darwin gave 
the evolution doctrine its new shaping, and the point of 
the discussion was the merits of development as it was 
left by Lamarck and the author of the 'Yestiges of 
Creation.' All this time he was pushing his general 
studies in all directions. In college he had become 
interested in the German literature. He now became 
more interested than ever in Germany and German 
topics. If it be true, as tradition asserts, that one of his 
ancestors was a German woman, the principle of heredity 
may explain his admiration of the German patience, 
thoroughness, and profundity. One of his old maxims, 
to be construed rhetorically, of course, is, that ' hard work 
is the only genius'; a maxim that well describes the Ger- 
man mental habit. One of his lectures on Germany, I 
well remember, sent one pupil post-haste to the library 



no THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

in search of Motley's ' Dutch Republic,' a work just from 
Harpers' press, that he had mentioned in his discourse."* 

Mr. Garfield had taken very little interest and no 
prominent part in political affairs before 1856, his first 
political speech having been made, as we have observed, 
while a student at Williams, at a college meeting, to 
ratify the nomination of John C. Fremont for the Pre- 
sidency of the United States. Already had begun the 
heavy skirmishing before the great battle between the 
pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces in the Union. The 
Kansas question involved in the fierce struggle at that 
period of the early settlement of that territory, was the 
absorbing topic of the time. 

The discussion of that scheme so powerfully stirred 
the conscience of the Republic that men of all parties in 
politics and religion, moved by the powerful sentiment of 
opposition to the farther extension of slavery in the ter- 
ritories, had formed, as we have already observed, a new 
political party which they had named Republican. Gar- 
field's sympathies being in accordance with the avowed 
purposes of that party he attached himself to it. Through 
his wonderful prescience he clearly foresaw that the im- 
pending conflict between freedom and slavery for the 
possession of the Republic was at hand. The narratives 
of the cruel operations of the Fugitive Slave Law had 
stirred his young blood, and he gladly enlisted for the 
fighl under the banner of justice and righteousness. 

The Domination in the Fall of 1856 of James 
Buchanan, one of the authors of the " Ostend Manifes- 
to," or "Circular," aroused the strong opposition of 



' II tory of Garfield's Life, by B. A Hinsdale, A. ML, President of 
Hiram College, New York : 1). Appletoo & Co., lbSO. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. Ill 

Mr. Garfield, and he made several stirring political 
speeches in the Western Reserve. That " Manifesto" 
was so immoral in its doctrines, so unjust in its declarations, 
and so manifestly anti-American in its general tone and 
purpose that honest, patriotic hearts were stirred with 
indignation. Its plea was that of the mailed hand — 
" Might makes Right." It recommended the purchase of 
Cuba from Spain if possible, if not, the acquisition of it 
by force. 

" If Spain," said the authors of that disgraceful letter 
[James Buchanan, American Minister at London ; John Y. 
Mason, Ambassador at Paris; and Pierre Soule, Ambas- 
sador at Madrid], " actuated by a stubborn pride and a 
false sense of honor, should refuse to sell Cuba to the 
United States . . . then by every law, human and 
divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain, if 
we possess the power ! " 

This intended burglary by a great nation was a part of 
a grand scheme (the execution of which was attempted 
later) for the extension of the area of slave territory in 
the United States. Keen minds like Garfield's pene- 
trated the plot, and it was this perception which drew 
him from the quiet retreat at Hiram into the arena of 
fierce conflict with the party which had passively adopted 
the doctrines of the " Circular " by failing to rebuke 
their utterance. His political speeches in the Western 
Reserve at that time drew universal attention to him 
thronghout that region. 

Personal Liberty laws, enacted by several States of 
the Union, were the topics of wide and vehement discus- 
sion. It had been plainly seen that, under the unjust 
provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law, free negroes might, 



112 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

by the perjury of kidnappers, and the denial of the com- 
mon right to defence allowed to the vilest criminal, be 
carried into hopeless slavery, beyond the reach of pity, 
mercy or law. This perception of the danger of possible 
wrong caused the Legislatures of several free-labor States to 
pass laws for the protection of free colored citizens within 
their borders, made so by the circumstance of birth or of 
existing laws. 

The States which thus boldly raised the shield of pro- 
tection for the oppressed were Maine, New Hampshire, 
Vermont. .Massachusetts, Connecticut, Khode Island, New 
York and Michigan. Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, 
California and Oregon made no laws on the subject. The 
yoice of Garfield was heard eloquently proclaiming the 
righteousness of these laws, and urging, the Legislature of 
his own State to enact a stringent Personal Liberty bill. 
The politicians were too timid. 

These laws exasperated the politicians of the slave-labor 
States who controlled public opinion, and they were used 
by them as a pre' ext for kindling the names of civil war. 
And yet it is worthy of note in this connection that the 
statute-books of < very Slave-labor StaU in the Union con- 
tained, at thai time, Pergonal Liberty Acts, all of them 
as much in opposition to the letter a ml spirit of the Fugi- 
S7a '•- Law of L850 as any act passed l>y the Legisla- 
tures of Free-labor States. Some of them had penalties 
more severe. All of them provided ior the use of law 
by the alleged .-lave; most of them gave him a trial by 
jury; and those of North Carolina and Texas punished 
the stealer and seller of a free negro with death. The 
Bpirit and objeel of all were expressed in the preamble to 
the law in Georgia, as follows : 




or 

8 

I 

o 
hi 

8 
$ 

I 

Q) 

32 

Rl 

ft? 

&. 



8) 

i 



JAMBS .1. GAUFIELD. 115 

" Whereas free per SODS of color arc liable to lie taken 
and held fraudulently and illegally in a state of ,-laven l>\ 
wicked white mem and to be secretly removed whenever 
in elTort may he made to redress their grievances, so thai 
due inquiry may not he had into the circumstances of the 
detention of the same, and their right of freedom," 1 
etcetera, " Be it enacted," &c. 

Taking part in the political campaigns of 1857 and 
185S, Garfield became widely known as a most vigorous 
"stump" orator; and in 1859 the Anti-Slavery party of 
Portage and Summit counties elected him to a scat in the 
Senate of the State of Ohio, by a large majority. Young 
as he was (twenty-eight) he immediately took a position 
as a leader in that body, generally well informed on eveiy 
subject brought before it, effective in debate and always 
eloquent and forcible in speech. He did not resign the 
Presidency of Hiram College, because liis associates were 
anxious that he should not sever his connection with it, 
and agreed to take upon themselves his duties during the 
few weeks he might be compelled to attend a session of 
the Legislature at Columbus. 

Garfield served as State Senator in 1860-61. In that 
body he, J. D. Cox and Mr. Munroe were called the 
" Kadical Triumvirate," and yet his views and sympathies 
were very broad. While he was firm in support of his con- 
victions upon any subject, his feelings and language were 
usually conciliatory. On the completion of the Louisville 
and Nashville Railway, in 1860, the Governors and Legis- 
latures of Kentucky and Tennessee met at Louisville to 
celebrate the event. The Ohio Legislature passed a reso- 
lution inviting these legislators to extend their visit to 
Columbus, at the expense of the State of Ohio. Garfield 



116 THE BI0QRAPH7 OF 

was the mover of the resolution, believing such a visit 
would promote good feeling, then much disturbed by 
" coming events which cast their shadows before." I It* 
waa sent to l/ouisville as chairman of the committee of 
invitation. \\\> speech at a banquet there in response to 
the toast " ( >hio " was much admired. It might be termed 
a •• Union-saving speech. " It gave no offense. A single 
paragraph will give an idea of its tone: 

" Brethren, we have too long heard of the North and 
the South. Their angry words have too long vexed the 
hearts of our fellow-citizens. But there is a third voice 
to be heard ere long. I hope and believe the day is not 
far distant when the great West shall speak, and that 
voice shall he heard from sea to sea. In that voice shall 
be heard no terms of doubt or uncertainty ; no note of 
disunion shall be heard in that utterance." 

Nor was this a mere bit of rhetoric. The orator 
meant it all. But, while he allowed no man to surpass 
him in devotion to the union of sentiment and feeling, he 
also knew how to contend for the Union, the Constitution 
and the laws. 

The mntterings of the distant thunder of revolution 
reverberating in the South, became louder and louder; 
the heaving- of the pent-up volcano of passion and vio- 
lence below the Potomac became more and more distinct ; 
and the portentous gusts which preceded the coming tem- 
pesl of war and discord, the gathering clouds of which hung 
menacingly over a large portion of the Republic, became 
more frequenl and energetic as the year 1800 wore away. 

Nowhere in the broad 1 nion was the voice of menace 

more truculenl or tones more insulting toward the national 
government and the people of the Free-Labor States than 



JAMBS I. GARFIELD. 117 

in South Carolina, especially after the election in Novem- 
ber, 1800, decided that Mr. Lincoln, the Republican 
candidate for the Presidential Chair, was actually chosen. 
It had been agreed that revolutionary movements should 
begin in that State immediately after the election of Mr. 
Lincoln should be made known. Accordingly, when the 
telegraph had flashed the intelligence of that event all 
over the land on the morning of November 7, and the 
tidings were greeted with joy by a large proportion of the 
inhabitants of the Republic, because of the auspicious event, 
the enthusiasm of the rebellious spirits in South Carolina 
was equally exultant, because a pretext for an armed 
resistance to the authority of the national government 
was secured. 

That morning the United States District Court had 
assembled in Charleston, over which one of the leaders of 
rebellion, Judge A. G. Magrath, presided. The Grand 
Jurj', according to instructions, declined to make any 
presentments. They said that the action of the ballot-box 
on the previous day had destroyed all hopes of a perma- 
nent confederacy of the " Sovereign States," and that the 
public mind was constrained to " rise above the consider- 
ation of details in the administration of law and justice, 
up to the vast and solemn issues that have been forced upon 
us — issues which involve the existence of the Government 
of which this court is the organ." They therefore declined 
to act. This solemn judicial farce was perfected by the 
formal resignation of Judge Magrath. With ludicrous 
gravity, he said to the jurors : — " For the last time I have, 
as Judge of the United States, administered the laws of 
the United States within the limits of South Carolina. 
So far as I am concerned the Temple of Justice raised 



lis THE BIOGRAPHY Off 

under the Constitution of the United States, is now 
closed. " 

There was intense excitement at Columbia, the capital 
of South Carolina, on the morning after the election. 
Governor Gist was the recipient of many messages by 
telegraph : — 

''The Governor and Council are in session," said one 
from Raleigh, North Carolina. " The people are very 
much excited. North Carolina is ready to secede." 

" Large numbers of Bell men " [friends of John Bell, 
of Tennessee, who had also been a candidate for the 
Presidency], said another, from Montgomery, Alabama, 
" headed by T. II. Watts, have declared for secession since 
the announcement of Lincoln's election. The State will 
undoubtedly secede." 

" The hour for action has come," said a message from 
Milledgeville, Georgia. "This State is ready to assert 
her rights and independence. The leading men are eager 
for the business." 

"There is a great deal of excitement here," said a 
dispatch from Washington City; "several extreme South- 
ern men, in office, have donned the Palmetto cockade, 
and declared themselves ready to march South." 

" If your State secedes," said another, from Rich- 
mond, Virginia, "we will send you troops of volunteers 
to aid you." 

"Placards are posted about the city,' 1 said a message 
from New Orleans, "calling a convention of those favor- 
able to the organization of a corps of Minute-men. The 
I Governor is all right." 

" Be firm," said a second dispatch from Washington; 
"a large quantity Of arms will be shipped South from the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 119 

arsenal here, to-morrow. The President is perplexed. 
His feelings are with the South, but he is afraid to assist 
them openly." 

" The bark James Gray, owned by Cushing's Boston 
line, lying at our wharves," said a message from Charles- 
ton, " has hoisted the Palmetto flag, and fired a salute of 
fifteen guns, under direction of her owner. The Minute- 
men throng the streets with Palmetto cockades in their 
hats. There is great rejoicing here." 

Stimulated by these indications of sympathy, the South 
Carolina Legislature took bold and vigorous action. They 
authorized the assembling of a convention for the pur- 
pose of passing an ordinance of secession. It was called 
for the 17th of December. They met at Columbia on 
that day, but in consequence of the prevalence of the 
small-pox there, they adjourned to Charleston, where, on 
the 20th (December, 1860), the convention passed an or- 
dinance of secession, in the following words : 

" We, the People of the State of South Carolina, 
in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and 
it is hereby declared and ordained, that the ordi- 
nance adopted by us in convention, on the twenty- 
third day of may, ln the year of our lord one thou- 
sand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the 
Constitution of the United States was ratified, and 
also all Acts and parts of Acts of the General 
Assembly of the State, ratifying Amendments of the 
said Constitution, are hereby repealed, and the Union 
now subsisting between south carolina and oi'her 
States, under the name of the United States of Amer- 
ica, IS HEREBY DISSOLVED." 

When the passage of the Ordinance of Secession was 



L20 Till-: BlOORAPnT OF 

announced by placards in the Btreets of Charleston early 
in the afternoon, all business was suspended ; groups of 
citizens were seen on every Bide exchanging congratula- 
tions; women displayed "secession bonnets;" the church 
bells rang out merry peals; some young men gathered 
around the tomb of John ('. Calhoun in St. Philip's 
church-yard and took a solemn oath to devote their "lives, 
their fortunes and their sacred honors," to the cause of 
South Carolina independence, and an enthusiastic poet 
wrote, before he slept that night, enrapt by a vision 
of the " minions of the Federal Government" escaping 
from the wrath of the " Sovereign State " of South Carolina: 

" See ! see ! they quail and cry ! 
The dogs of Rapine fly, 
Struck by the terror of her mien, her glance of lightning 
fire ! 
And the mongrel, hurrying pack 
In whimpering fear fall back, 
With the sting of baffled haired hot, and the rage of false 
desire. 
glorious Mother Land ! 
In thy presence, stern and grand, 
Unnumbered fading hopes rebloom, and faltering hearts 
grow brave, 
And a consentaneous shout 
To the answering heavens rings out — 
■ < Ml' with the livery of disgrace, the baldric of the 
Slave!'" 



JAMES A. UAUFIKLD. 121 



CHAPTER VI. 

BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR. 

"While the madmen of South Carolina were urging 
the nation toward the horrible vortex' of civil war, and 
were avowedly intent on accomplishing the destruction of 
the Republic for the purpose of building upon its ruins 
an empire, the corner-stone of which should be the system 
of human slavery, patriotic men all over the Union stood 
amazed in doubt and perplexity, but none the less de- 
termined to endeavor to avert the impending evil and 
save their country from dissolution. 

There were a few great souls who comprehended the 
philosophy of the mad movement from its inception and 
regarded it with calmness as the beginning of a brighter 
epoch in our national life. Their prescience penetrated 
the depths of the crisis, and perceived that it was no 
superficial outbreak of passion, but the logical sequence 
of long past events. They stood calmly by watching the 
portents of the times, ready, if need be, to bare their 
bosoms to the tempest which they clearly saw approach- 
ing. Their voices were heard, not in passionate harangues 
or angry debates, but in calling the attention of their 
countrymen to the momentous interests at stake and 
trying to urge them to " reason together" and do right. 

Among these few wise citizens was James A. Gar- 
field. He thoroughly comprehended the situation of 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

our political affairs in 1SG0. He had watched, with deep 
anxiety yet with calm faith, the course of events, especially 
since the insane movements of Southern politicians in the 
Democratic National Convention at Charleston in May, 
when they declared their intention to break up the Union 
if their desires should not Be gratified. In a remarkable 
oration delivered by Mr. Garfield on July 4, I860, at 
Ravenna, Ohio, he endeavored to impress upon his 
countrymen the blessings of our free institutions and the 
dignity of American citizenship. He said: 

•• We have seen that our Republic differs in its origin 
from all the monarchies of the world. "We may also see 
that it differs widely from all other republics of ancient 
or modern' times. These all centred round a conquering 
hero or a powerful city — ours round a principle. In the 
brightest days of the Grecian Republic, its strength and 
glory rested upon the life and fortunes of Pericles. In 
the old Dutch Republic of Holland and the later estab- 
lishments of modern Germany, freedom was of the city 
and not of the people. The burghers were the only free- 
men, and they constituted an aristocracy more haughty 
and imperious than the hereditary peers of England. The 
peasants of the rural districts, the toiling thousands, were 
hardly known to the government, except that they bore 
many of .its heavy burdens. But here, cities are not 
tyrannies, and freedom in her best estate is found in the 
green Gelds of t Ho country, among the hardy tillers of 
the soil. Heroes did not make our liberties, they but re- 
flected and illustrated them. Individuals may wear for a 
time the glory of our institutions, but they carry it not 
with them to Hie grave. kike rain-drops from heaven, 
they pass through the circle of the shining bow and add 
to its lustre, but when they have sunk in the earth again, 
the proud arch still .-pans the sky and shines gloriously 
on. Governments, in general, look upon man only as a 



JAMES A. AH FIELD. 128 

citizen, a fraction of the state. God looks upon him as 
an individual man, with capacities, duties and a destinj 
of his own ; and just in proportion as a government rec- 
ognizes the individual and shields him in the exercises of 
his rights, in that proportion is it Godlike and glorious. 
The village church and the village school have become 
our groat civilizing and elevating guardians, and we men- 
tion with honest pride the fact that more than half of 
all the revenue of our State Government is annually ex- 
pended in the education of our youth. And yet there are 
other States in the Union which, in this respect, wear 
still brighter laurels than Ohio. To all these means of 
culture is added that powerful incentive to personal am- 
bition which springs from the genius of our Government. 
The pathway to honorable distinction lies open to all. 
No post of honor so high but the poorest boy may hope 
to reach it. 

"It is the pride of every American that many cher- 
ished names, at whose mention our hearts beat with a 
quicker bound, were worn by the sons of poverty, who 
conquered obscurity and became fixed stars in our firma- 
nient. None appreciate this more fully than our adopt- 
ed citizens, who have felt the crushing hand of power in 
other lands. It cannot but destroy the high hopes of a 
noble nature to know that, though the blood that visits 
his heart leaps as free and ruby red as that which courses 
the veins of king or lord, and though in God's sight he is 
every whit their peer, yet the strong crust of centuries is 
above him, the shadow of power gloomily enshrouds him, 
and all the high places of distinction and trust are forever 
barred against him. 

" And here we are brought to that question of deepest 
interest to the patriot's heart — our nation's future. Shall 
it be perpetual ? Shall the expanding circle of its benefi- 
cent influence extend, widening onward to the farthest 
shore of time ? Shall its sun rise higher and yet higher, 
and shine with ever-brightening lustre ? Or, has it passed 
the zenith of its glory, and left us to sit in the length- 



ui Tin: BIOGRAPHY OF 

ening Bhadows of its coming uighl ? Shall power from 
beyond the sea snatch the proud banner from us ? Shall 
civil dissension or intestine Btrife rend the fair fabric of 

ili, In inn ? The rulers of the Old World have long and 
impatiently looked to see fulfilled the prophecy of its 
downfall. Such philosophers as Coleridge, Allhon and 
Afacauley have, severally, sel forth (he reasons for this 
prophec) — the chief of which is, that the element of insta- 
bility in our Government will sooner or later bring upon 
it certain destruction. This is truly a grave charge. But 
whether instability is an element of destruction or of 
safety, depends wholly upon the sources whence that in- 
stability springs. 

"'The granite hills are not so changeless and abiding 
as the restless sea. Quiet is no certain pledge of perma- 
nence and safety. Trees may nourish and flowers may 
bloom upon the quiet mountain side, while silently the 
trickling raindrops are filling the deep cavern behind its 
rock] barriers, which, by and by, in a single moment, 
shall hurl to wild ruin its treacherous peace. It is true, 
that in our land there is no such outer quiet, no such de- 
ceitful repose. Here society is a restless and surging sea. 
The roar of the billows, the dash of the wave, is forever 
in our ears. Even the angry hoarseness of breakers is not 
unheard, lint there is an understratum of deep, calm, 
sea. which the breath of the wildest tempesl can never 
reach. There is deep down in the hearts of the American 
people, a Btrong and abiding love of our country and its 
liberty, which no surface-storms of passion can ever shake. 
That kind of instability which arises from a free nove- 
uii'iii and interchange of position among the members of 
society, which brings one drop up to glist( n for a time on 
resl of the highest wave, and then give place to an- 
other, while it goes down to mingle again with the mil- 
lions below ; such instability is the surest pledge of per- 
manence. On such instability the eternal fixedness of the 
universe is based, bach planet, in its circling orbit, re- 
form to the goal. of its departure, and on the balance of 



JAMES .1. d Mir I FA A). 125 

these wildly-rolling spheres God has planted the broad 
base of His mighty works. So the hope of our national 
perpetuity rests upon that perfeot individual freedom, 
which shall forever keep up the circuit of perpetual 

change. God forbid that the waters of our national life 
should ever settle to the dead level of a waveless calm! It 
would be the stagnation of death — the ocean grave of in- 
dividual liberty." 

As the storm-clouds in the Southern horizon thickened, 
and the lightnings of unholy wrath began to play, Mr. 
Garfield watched with a more iutense interest the aspect 
of public affairs. When South Carolina had cast the 
gauntlet of defiance at the feet of the National Govern- 
ment by its Ordinance of Secession ; when a little later 
the politicians of that State organized rebellion and 
inaugurated Civil War by firing on the Star of the West 
as she entered Charleston harbor with supplies for the 
garrison of Fort Sumter, he perceived that the great 
argument was closed and that a verdict must be rendered 
by the arbitrament of the sword. 

In this hour of dire peril to the government, the peo- 
ple looked anxiously to the national authorities for relief 
and assurance. Instead of strength the Government at 
Washington exhibited deplorable weakness. The annual 
message of President Buchanan was full of evidences of 
faint-heartedness and indecision on points where courage 
and positive convictions, acted upon, should have been 
apparent in its treatment of the great topic then tilling 
all hearts and minds, and bore painful indications that it> 
author was involved in some perilous dilemma into which 
he had fallen, and was anxiously seeking a way of escape. 



12(5 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

After condemning the action of Northern legislatures for 
the passage of Personal Liberty Bills, he said: 

"How easy it would be for the American people, to 
settle the slavery quest inn forever, and to restore peace 
and harmony for this distracted country. They, and they 
alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the 
t, and all for which the Slave States have ever con- 
tended, is, to be let alone, and permitted to manage their 
domestic institutions, in their own way. As Sovereign 
States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God 
and the world for the slavery existing among them. For 
this the people of the North are not more responsible, and 
have no more right to interfere, than with similar institu- 
tions in Russia or Brazil. Upon their good sense and 
patriotic forbearance I confess I greatly rely." 

Saving informed the conspirators that they had many 
grievances, and that under certain contingencies the peo- 
ple of the Slave-Labor States might be justified in re- 
bellion, the President proceeded to consider the right of 
-inn and the relative powers of onr National Gov- 
ernment : a topic to which the attention of the nation 
was then most anxiously turned. What will the Presidenl 
do in the event of open rebellion? was the momentous 
question. 

In the preparation of this part of his message, the 

lent had evidently turned for advice to his A.ttorney- 

General, Jeremiah S. Black. That advice was given in 

liberal measure, on November 20, in no less than three 

thousand words. 

Assuming tha.1 Slates, as State-, might rebel, the At- 

irgumenl gave much "aid and comfort " 
to the conspirators. After speaking of occasions when 



JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 129 

the President, as commander-in-chief of all the military 
forces of the Republic, might properly use them in .-up- 
port of the laws of the land, he supposed the case of a 
State in which all the National officers, including judges, 
district attorneys, and marshals, affected by the delirium 
of rebellious fever, should resign their places — a part 
of the programme of revolution in South Carolina al- 
ready adopted, and which was carried out a month later. 
What, then, should be done I It was clearly the duty of 
the President to till the offices with other men. "But," 
he said, " we can easily conceive how it might become 
altogether impossible." Indeed, this contingency had 
been contemplated by the conspirators, and provided for 
by prospective vigilance committees. " Then," he con- 
tinued, " there would be no courts to issue judicial process, 
and no ministerial officers to execute it." What then ? 
Why, the State has virtually disappeared as a part of the 
Republic ; and the power of the Supreme Government 
being only auxiliary to State life and force, National 
troops would certainly " be out of place, and their use 
wholly illegal. If they are sent to aid the courts and 
marshals, there must he courts and marshals to be aided. 
Without the exercise of those functions which belong ex- 
clusively to the civil service, the laws cannot be executed 
in any event, no matter what may be the physical strength 
which the Government has at its command. Under such 
circumstances, to send a military force into any State, 
with orders to act against the people, would be simply 
making war upon them." 

The Attorney-General limited the exercise of the pow- 
ers of the Executive, in the matter in question, to a 
simple protection of the public property. If he could 



180 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

not collect the revenue on accounl of insurrection, he had 
in. warrant for the use of military force. Congress might 
vote him the power, yet he doubted the ability of that 
body to find constitutional permission to do so. It seemed 
to him that an attempt to force the people of a State into 
submission to the laws of the Republic, and to desist 
from attempts to destroy it, would be making war upon 
them, by which they would be converted into alien ene- 
mies, and " would be compelled to act accordingly." 

If Congress should sanction such an attempt to uphold 
the authority of the National Government, the Attorney- 
General wished to know whether all of the States would 
"not be absolved from their Federal obligations? Is any 
portion of the people," he asked, "bound to contribute 
their money or their blood to carry on a contest like 
this?" In this " opinion," the Attorney-General virtually 
counselled the President to suffer this glorious concrete 
Republic to become disintegrated by the fires of faction 
or the blows of actual rebellion, rather than use force, 
legitimately at his service, for the preservation of its in- 
tegrity. 

The vital weakness in the arguments of the conspira- 
tor.-, and of those who adopted their peculiar political 
views, appear.- at all times in the erroneous assumption, 

a- premises, that States, as such, hail seceded, and that 
the National Government, if it should take action against 
rebellious movements, must of necessity war against a 
"Sovereign State" — no 6uch State, excepting Texas, ever 
having been endowed with sovereign power. The unde- 
niable tart opposed to this argument was, that no State, 
as such, had seceded, or could Becede; that the secession 
>i' certain States had been declared only by certain polir 



JAMF.s A. GARFIELD. 181 

ticians in those States, who were usurpers of the rights 
and sovereignty which belonged only to the people; that 
only certain persons in certain States were in rebellion, 
and that the Government could only act against those 
certain persons in certain States as individuals collectively 
rebellious, like a mob in a city. Therefore, there could 
be no such thing as the "coercion of a State." That 
which the conspirators and the politicians so adroitly and 
effectively exhibited as " coercion " Mas an unsubstantial 
phantom, created by the subtle alchemy of sophistry, for 
an ignoble purpose — an invention of disloyal metaphysi- 
cians in the Slave-Labor States, bearing, to undisciplined 
and unreasoning minds, the semblance of truth and 
reality. 

This bugbear of "coercion of a State " was continually 
exhibited before the people of the North by the political 
sympathizers with the Southern Secessionists. It was 
flaunted at public meetings, in State Legislatures, and oc- 
casionally in a pulpit. 

Garfield, having a clear conception of the nature of 
our Government, the absolute supremacy of the National 
Government under the Constitution, and the impossibility 
of the actual secession of a State, or its separation from 
the Union, except by the violence of revolutionary force, 
met this plea in the Ohio State Senate with his usual 
ability. He was foremost in advocating measures of pre- 
caution worthy of a great State. On January 24, 1801, 
he made a powerful speech in the Senate in support of a 
Militia Bill, for raising and equipping six thousand 
militia, in which he met the usual protest against " coer- 
cion " with this sententious utterance : 



[8 2 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

•• [f by coercion it is meant that the Federal Govern- 
ment shall declare and wage war against a State, then 1 
have yet to see any man, Democral or Republican, who is 
aiat. But, if by the term it is meant that the 
,! (Jovernraenl shall enforce the laws, by whomso- 
ever violated, shall proteel the property and Hag of the 
Onion, shall punish traitors to the Constitution, be they 
un ra< n or ten thousand, then 1 am a coercionist. Every 
member of the Senate, by his vote on the eighth resolu- 
tion, is a coercionist. Nine-tenths of the people of Ohio 
lercionists. Every man is a coercionist or a traitor."' 

As the tide of insurrection, rebellion and revolution 
rose higher and higher in the southern regions of the Re- 
pnbliCj and conventions of politicians in State after State 
adopted ordinances of secession (Mississippi, Florida, 
Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana in January, and Texas 
in February), and finally formed a confederation which 
they called the "Confederate Statesof America," at Mont- 
py, Alabama, Garfield's whole being became deeply 
interested in the great question of the hour. To Presi- 
dent Binsdale he wrote from Columbus, about the middle 
of January, L861 : 

•• My hearl and thoughts are full almost every moment 
with the terrible reality of our country*.- condition. We 
have learned bo long to look upon the convulsions of 
European States as things wholly impossible here, that 

ill,, people are Blow in coming to the belief that there may 
be any breaking up of our institutions; but stem, awful 
certain tj ie fastening \\\»<\\ the hearts of men. I do not 
see any way, outside a miracle of God, which can avoid 
civil war with all its attendant horrors. Peaceable disso- 
lution is utterly impossible. Indeed. 1 Bannol say that I 
would wish it possible. 'I'" make the concessions de- 
manded by the South would be hypocritical and sinful ; 



JAMES A. GAIU-'IELU. 1.;;; 

they would neither be obeyed nor respected. I am in- 
clined to believe that the sin of slavery is one of which it, 
may be said that without the shedding of blood there is 
no remission. 

"All that is left us as a State, or say, as a company of 
Northern States, is to arm and prepare to defend ourselves 
and the Federal Government. 1 believe the doom of slav- 
ery is drawing near. Let war come, and the slaves will 
get the vague notion that it is waged for them, and a 
magazine will be lighted whose explosion will shake the 
whole fabric of slavery. Even if all this happen, I cannot 
yet abandon the belief that one government will rule this 
continent, and its people be one people. 

" Meantime, what will be the influence of the times on 
individuals ? Your question is very interesting and sug- 
gestive. The doubt that hangs over the whole issue bears 
touching also. It may be the duty of our young men to 
join the army, or they may be drafted without their own 
consent. If neither of these things happen, there will be 
a period when old men and young will be electrified by 
the spirit of the times, and one result will be to make 
every individuality more marked and their opinions more 
decisive. I believe the times will be even more favorable 
than calm ones for the formation of strong and forcible 
characters. 

" Just at this time (have you observed the fact ?) we 
have no man who has power to ride upon the storm and 
direct it. The hour has come, but not the man. The 
crisis Avill make many such. But I do not love to specu- 
late on so painful a theme. ... I am chosen to re- 
spond to a toast on the Union at the State Printers' Fes- 
tival here next Thursday evening. It is a sad and diffi- 
cult theme at this time." 

The prophecies of this remarkable letter — remarkable 
considering the time and circumstances under which it 
was written — was speedily fulfilled. The "man" iv- 



i:;i THE DI0QRAPH7 OF 

ferred to in the last paragraph boob appeared In the per- 
son of ( reneral John A. Dix, who had been called to fill 
the position of Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan's 
Cabinet, when his disloyal ministers — notably Floyd and 
Thompson— had fled from Washington to their respective 
States to assist in promoting the great insurrection. Dix 
was a stanch patriot, and always fearless in the discharge 
of his duty, whatever it might be. 

Secretary Dix had sent William Hemphill Jones as 
special agent of the Treasury Department, to secure from 
seizure the revenue cutters Lewis Cass at Mobile, and 
Robert McClelland at New Orleans. He found the Cass 
in possession of tin- authorities of Alabama. He hastened 
to New Orleans, and in a note to Captain J. G. Bresh- 
wood, of the McClelland, inclosing one from Secretary 
Dix, he directed that officer to proceed immediately with 
his vessel to New York. Breshwood instantly replied: — 

" Your letter, with one of the L9th of January from 
the Honorable Secretary of the Treasury, I have duly re- 
ceived, and in reply refuse to obey the order." 

Jones immediately communicated the fact of this 
refusal to the Secretary by telegraph, and informed him 
that Collector Hatch sustained the action of the rebel. 
Dix instantly telegraphed back. January 2\K L861, say- 
ing : — 

"Tell Lieutenant Caldwell to arrest Captain Bresh- 
wood, assume command of the cutter, and obey the order 
through you. [f Captain Breshwood, after arrest, under- 
take- to interfere with the command of the cutter, tell 
Lieutenant Caldwell to consider him as a mutineer, and 
treat him accordingly. Tfanyon, nft< mj>ts to haid down 
ih- American fiag y shoot- him on ifu spot" 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 186 

General Dix's order soon went over the land by tele- 
graph and newspapers; and its last sentence thrilled 
every loyal heart with a hope that the hour of hesitation 
and temporizing, on the part of the Administration, had 
forever passed by. It had the ring of true loyalty and 
patriotism ; and the words, " If any one attempts to haul 
down the American flag, shoot him on the spot," went 
from lip to lip like electric fire, and became a proverb 
in every true American's thoughts. It was heard with 
dismay by the more timid insurgents, while its promises 
gave joy to the lover of his country. 

Meanwhile, the great Southern insurrection was spread- 
ing, and promising to speedily attain to the dignity of 
rebellion and civil war. Mr. Buchanan's term of office 
was drawing to a close, to the great relief of the loyal 
people of the country, and Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, 
the choice of the Republicans for the high office of Pre- 
sident of the United States, proceeded to the seat of 
government to assume the duties of that exalted station, 
to which the most solemn and important resj)onsibilities 
were attached at that time. His journey from his home 
in Springfield, Illinois, by the way of New York, was a 
continuous ovation. Mr. Garfield wrote as follows to his 
friend Hinsdale, from Columbus, on February 16 : — 

" Mr. Lincoln has come and gone. The rush of 
people to see him at every point on the route is astonish- 
ing. The reception here was plain and republican, but 
very impressive. He has been raising a respectable pair 
of dark brown whiskers, which decidedly improve his- 
looks, but no appendage can ever render him remarkable 
for beauty. On the whole I am greatly pleased with him. 
He clearly shows his want of culture, and the marks of 
Western life, but there is no touch of affectation in him, 



13G THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

and he has a peculiar power of impressing you that he is 
frank, dimi and thoroughly honest. His remarkable 
good M-ii-i. Bimple and condensed style of expression, and 
evident marks of indomitable will, give me great hopes 
for the country. And, after the long, dreary period of 
Buchanan's weakness and cowardly imbecility, the people 
will hail a strong and vigorous leader. 

"Ihave never brought my mind to consent to the 
dissolution peaceably. 1 know it may be asked, Is it not 
better to dissolve before war than after ? But I ask, Is it 
not better to light before dissolution than after ? If the 
North and South cannot live in the Union without war, 
how can they live and expand as dissevered nations with- 
out it ? -May it not be an economy of bloodshed to tell 
the South that disunion is war, and that the United States 
Government will protect its property and execute its laws 
at all hazards ? 

" I confess the great weight of the thought in your 

letter of the Plymouth and Jamestown ideas, and their 

vital and utter antagonism. This conflict may yet break 

the ease by the lustiness of its growth and strength, but 

the history of other nations gives me hope. Every 

t-nmenl has periods when its strength and unity are 

tested. England has passed through the Wars of the 

and tin- days of Cromwell. A monarchy is more 

easily overthrown than a republic, because its sovereignty 

■ ic nt rated, and a single blow, if it be powerful 

enough, will crush it. 

•• Burke, this is really a great time to live in, if any of 
Q8 can only catch the cue of it. 1 am glad you write on 
these subjects, and you must blame yourself for having 
made me inflict on you the longest letter 1 have written 
to an;, one ill more than a year." 

Mr. I. inc., In reached Washington in safety (though 
barely escaping assassination by Secessionists in Baltimore), 
through 'he vigilance and assistance of his friends, He 



JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 137 

was inaugurated on March 4, 1'861, in the presence of a 
vast multitude of bis fellow-citizens. To them by bis 

voice, and to the country through the press, in his address 
on that day, he foreshadowed the policy he intended to 
pursue in the presence of the mighty crisis in the history 
of his country. After clearly showing that in the very 
nature of the National Constitution — the supreme law of 
the land — the Secession of a State by lawful means was 
an impossibility, and that the Union was, by necessity, 
perpetual, he said : 

"It follows, from these views, that no State, upon its 
own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union ; 
that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void ; 
and that acts of violence within any State or States, 
against the authority of the United States, are insurrec- 
tionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. I, 
therefore, consider that, in view of the Constitution and 
the laws, the Union is unbroken, and, to the extent of my 
ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself ex- 
pressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be 
faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem 
to be only a simple duty on my part, and I shall perform 
it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the 
American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or 
in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust 
this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the de- 
clared jmrpose of the Union, that it will constitutionally 
defend and maintain itself. 

"In doing this, there need be no bloodshed or vio- 
lence ; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon 
the National authority. The power confided to me will 
be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and 
places belonging to the Government, and to collect the 
duties and imposts ; but beyond what may be but neces- 
sary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using 



138 THE BTOQRAPHT OF 

of force against or among the people anywhere. Where 
hostility to the United States in any interior locality >hall 
greal and universal as to prevent competent resident 
citizen.- from holding the Federal offices, there will be no 
at tempi to force obnoxious strangers among the people for 
thai object. While the strict legal right may exist in the 
Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the 
attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly im- 
practicable withal. I deem it better to forego for the time 
the uses of such offices." 

Still upward swelled the tide of insurrection and 
rebellion, and the loyal people saw that wise and patriotic 
men were needed in the councils of the nation. They 
saw. also, that there might be a necessity, very soon, for 
expert military leaders, for the enemies of the Republic 
were making great preparations for war. 

Garfield's career in the State Senate had exhibited snch 
sound statesmanship and patriotic devotion, that the peo- 
ple of the Western Reserve desired him to be their repre- 
sentative in Congress, at this crisis. Much as he was 
wedded to his literary work at Hiram, he appeared willing 
to sacrifice his preference on the altar of his country if 
required. In March, 1861, he was invited to take the 
post of vice-principal in the Cleveland Institute, at a 
salary much greater than he was receiving at Hiram. To 
this invitation be replied : 

■• I am very much obliged to you for your kind offer, 
but von would not want to employ me for a short time, 
and I feel it my duty to say that sonic of my friends have 
got the insane notion in their heads that 1 OUghl to go 
I I .1 know I ain't fit for the position, anil 1 

have foil gill against it all 1 could. I know nothing about 
political wire-pulling, and I have told my friends plainly 



JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 139 

that I would have nothing to do with that kind of busi- 
ness ; but I am sure that I can be nominated and elected 
without my resorting to any unlawful means, and I have 
lately given authority to allow my name to be used. I 
don't know that anything will come of it ; if there does 
not, I will gladly accept your offer." 

A Peace Convention had been held at Washington in 
February, with the avowed object of maturing a plan for 
the pacification of the country. The conference had been 
proposed by the Legislature of Virginia, but the proposi- 
tion was accompanied by a menace. They 

"JResolved : That if all efforts to reconcile the unhappy 
differences between the sections of our country shall prove 
abortive, then every consideration of honor and interest 
demands that Virginia shall unite her destinies with her 
Sister Slave-holding States." 

Virginia was made to say to the North, substantially, 
in the words of an epigrammatist of the time : 

" First — Move not a finger ; 'tis coercion, 

The signal for our prompt dispersion. 

"Second — Wait, till /speak my full decision, 
Be it for Union or division. 

" Third — If / declare my ultimatum, 

Accept my terms as I shall state 'em. 

" Fourth — Then I'll remain, while I'm inclined to ; 
Seceding when I have a mind to." 

Twenty-one States — fourteen Free-Labor and seven 
Slave-Labor — were represented in the convention. Ex- 
President John Tyler, of Virginia, was chosen chairman 
of the convention. Discussions were carried on for more 



[40 THE BfOGRAPBl OF 

than twenty days. The chief topic was slavery, and the 
chief object of the majority of the convention appeared to 
be to recommend amendments to the Constitution on a 
basis of compromise between the pro-slavery and anti- 
Blavery men of the cation. Their labors were fruitless of 
any salutary results. Mr. Garfield opposed the conven- 
tion on the ground that it would undoubtedly tend to a 
compromise fatal to the hopes of those who wished the 
Republic freed from the sin and burden of slavery, lie 
clearly perceived what was soon apparent to others, that 
the object of the Virginia Legislature was not jjeace, but 
to gain time to make preparations for toar. 

Finally, the impatient South Carolinians, perceiving 
the hesitation of Virginia to join its fortunes with those 
of the Southern Confederacy, resolved to bring on acrisis 
by bombarding Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor. 
Virginians in Charleston urged them to this measure. 
R ;• A. Pry or, a former member of Congress, in a fiery 
speech in response to a serenade, after urging the South 
Carolinians to adhere to their Ordinance of Secession, 
and assuring them that Virginia would follow them, con- 
cluded his harangue by exclaiming, with great vehe- 
mence : 

•■ I will tell you. gentlemen, what will put her in the 
Southern < lonfederacy in less than an hour by Shrewsbury 

clock BTEIKEABLOW! The very moment that blood is 
shed, old Virginia will make common cause with her sis- 
ters of the South !" 

This hint was acted upon. Fort Sumter was su!>- 
jecte.l to a fierce attack from two hundred cannons and 
mortars planted <>n the shores of Charleston harbor, and 
was soon evacuated by its little starving garrison. The 




THE GflllFIELQ CHILQIiEJT. 



JAMES A. GARFTK1.D. 143 

act was highly approved by the Confederate Government 
at Montgomery, over which Jefferson Davis presided, 
lie had said, while on his way from his home in Missis- 
sippi to assume the Presidency : " Whoever opposes us 
shall smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel." 

The attack on Fort Sumter fired every loyal heart in 
the nation with patriotic zeal and firm resolve. Heart 
throbbed to heart, lip spoke to lip, with a oneness of feel- 
ing that seemed like adivine inspiration, and the burden 
of thought was : 

" Stand by the Flag ! all doubt and treason scorning, 
Believe, with courage firm and faith sublime, 
That it will float until the eternal morning 
Pales, in its glories, all the lights of Time \" 

The President of the United States immediately issued 
a proclamation (April 15, 1861), which called forth the 
militia of the several States of the Republic to the aggre- 
gate number of seventy-five thousand men. At the same 
time the Secretary of War issued a telegraphic dispatch 
to nearly all the governors of all the States, requesting 
each of them to furnish a specified number of militia to 
serve for three months.* 



* The quota for each State was as follows. The figures denote the 
number of regiments. 

Maine 1 Virginia 3 

New Hampshire 1 North Carolina 2 

Vermont 1 Kentucky 4 

Massachusetts 2 Arkansas 1 

Rhode Island 1 Missouri 4 

Connecticut. 1 Ohio 13 

New York 17 Indiana 6 

New Jersey G Illinois 6 

Pennsylvania 1G Michigan . . 1 

Delaware 1 Iowa 1 

Tennessee 2 Minnesota 1 

Maryland 4 Wisconsin 1 



ill Till-: BIOGRAPHY OF 

The President's Proclamation, and the requisition of 
the Secretary of War, were received with unbounded 
favor and enthusiam in the Free-Labor States ; while in 
biz of the eight Slave-Labor States included in the call, 
they were treated by the authorities with words of scorn 
ami defiance. The exceptions were Maryland and Dela- 
ware. In the other States disloyal Governors held the 
rein- of power. 

•• I have only to say," replied Governor Letcher, of 
Virginia, " that the militia of this State will not be fur- 
nished to the powers at Washington for any such use or 
purpose as they have in view. Four object is to subju- 
gate the Southern States, and a requisition made upon me 
for such an object- -an object, in my judgment, not within 
the province of the Constitution or the act of 1795 — will 
not he complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate 
civil war, and, having done so. we will meet it in a spirit 
as determined as the Administration has exhibited toward 
the South." 

Governor Ellis, of North Carolina, answered: — "Your 
dispatch is received, and if genuine, which its extraordi- 
nary character lead- me to doubt, I have to Bay in reply, 
thai I regard the levy of troops, made by the Administra- 
tion for the purpose of subjugating the States of the 
S«.uth. as in violation of the Constitution, and a usurpa- 
tion of power. I can be no party to this wicked violation 
of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the 
liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from 
North < larolina." 

Governor Magoffin, <»f Kentucky, replied : — " Your 

dispatch is received. I say emphatically that Kentucky 



JAMES I. GARFIELD. i;:, 

will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subdu- 
ing her sister Southern States." 

Governor Harris, ot Tennessee, said: — "Tennessee 
will not furnish a single man for coercion, but fifty thou- 
sand, if necessary, for the defense of our rights, or those 
of our Southern brethren." 

Governor Rector, of Arkansas, replied: — "In answer 
to your requisition for troops from Arkansas to subjugate 
the Southern States, I have to say that none will be fur- 
nished. The demand is only adding insult to injur}-. The 
people of this Commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and 
will defend to the last extremity, their honor, their lives, 
and property, against Northern mendacity and usurpa- 
tion." 

Governor Jackson, of Missouri, responded : — "There 
can be, I apprehend, no doubt that these men are intended 
to make war upon the seceded States. Your requisition, 
in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolu- 
tionary in its objects, inhuman and diabolical, and cannot 
be complied with. Not one man will the State of 
Missouri furnish to carry on such an unholy crusade." 

There is such a coincidence of lano-nage and sentiment 
in the responses of these disloyal Governors that the con- 
viction M T as pressed upon the Government that the 
conclave at Montgomery was the common source of their 
inspiration. 

The President also called an extraordinary session of 
the National Congress, to meet on July 4, 1861. In his 
Message, after reciting the cause for calling them together, 
he said: "It is now recommended that you give the legal 
means for making this contest a short and decisive one ; 
that you place at the control of the government, for the 



140 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

work, at Least four hundred thousand men and four 

hundred million dollars The people will save the 

Government, if the Government itself will do its part 
only indifEerently well." It was done, and the insurrec- 
tion assumed the huge proportions of Civil War. 

The prime object of the conspirators against the life of 
the Republic, was the seizure of the National Capital, 
expel the Government, take possession of the National 
archives and the public Treasury, and inaugurate a new 
government with the system of human slavery for its 
corner-stone. To this end all their efforts were bent 
after the President's call for troops to put down the 
insurrection. 

By unlawful means, the Virginia Convention, of 
which a majority were opposed to secession, adopted an 
ordinance to that effect on the 10th of April. A 
few days afterwards Alexander 11. Stephens, Vice-Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy, journeyed from Montgomery to 
Richmond, clothed with power to make a treaty for 
transferring the control of the military forces of Virginia 
to the authorities of the " Confederate States of Amer- 
ica." At various points on his journey northward. 
Stephens had harangued the people, and everywhere he 
raised the cry of "On to Washington"! " That cry was 
already resounding throughout the South. 

•• Nothing is more probable," said the Richmond 
Enquirer on the 13th of April, "than that President 
Davis will BOOD march an army through North Carolina 
and Virginia to Washington," and it called upon Vir- 
ginians who wished to "join the Southern army," to 
organize at once. 

" The iirst fruits of Virginia secession,'' said the Nt W 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 147 

Orleans Picayune of the 18th, " will bo the removal of 
Lincoln and his Cabinet, and whatever he can carry away, 
to the safer neighborhood of Harrisburg or Cincinnati — 
perhaps to Buffalo or Cleveland." The Vicksburg 
(Mississippi) Whig of the 20th said :— " Major Ben Mc- 
Culloch has organized a force of five thousand men to 
seize the Federal Capital the instant the first blood is 
spilled." 

On the evening of the same day, when news of blood- 
shed in Baltimore was received in Montgomery, bonfires 
were built in front of the Exchange Hotel, and from its 
balcony Roger A. Pryor said, in a speech to the multi- 
tude, that he was " in favor of an immediate march upon 
Washington." 

At the departure of the Second Regiment of South 
Carolina Infantry for Richmond, at about the same time, 
the Colonel (Kershaw), on taking the flag presented to 
the regiment, said, as he handed it to the Color-Sergeant 
(Gordon) : — " To your particular charge is committed this 
noble gift. Plant it wherever honor calls. If oppor- 
tunity offers, let it be the first to kiss the breezes of 
heaven from the dome of the Capitol at Washington." 

The Richmond Examiner of the 23d (the day on 
which Stephens arrived in Richmond), said : — " The 
capture of Washington City is perfectly within the power 
of Yirginia and Maryland, if Virginia will only make the 
proper effort by her constituted authorities. . 
There never was half the unanimity among the people 
before, nor a tithe of the zeal upon any subject that is 
now manifested to take Washington, and drive from it 
every Black Republican who is a dweller there. From 
the monntain-tops and valleys to the shores of the sea 



[48 TEE BIOOBAPBT OF 

there is one wild BhOul of tierce resolve to capture Wash- 
ington City, at all and every human hazard." 

On the same day Governor Ellis, of North Carolina, 
ordered a regimenl of State troops to march for Wash- 
ington; and the Goldsborough. Tribum of the 24th said, 
speaking of the grand movement of Virginia and a 
rumored one in Maryland: — '* It makes good the words 
of Secretary Walker at Montgomery, in regard to the 
Federal metropolis. It transfers the lines of battle from 
the Potomac to the Pennsylvania border." 

The Ii"l' igh Standard of the same date said : — " Our 
streets are alive with soldiers " (although North Carolina 
was a professedly loyal State of the Union), and added, 
•■ Washington City will be too hot to hold Abraham 
Lincoln and his Government. North Carolina has said it, 
and she will do all she can to make good her declaration." 

The Wilmington (N. G.) Journal said :- -""WhenNorth 
Carolina regiments go to Washington, and they will go, 
they will stand side by side with their brethren of the 

South:' 

The Wufa/ula (Alabama) Esopress said, on April 25th: — 
"Our policy at this time should be to seize the old 
Federal Capital, and take old Lincoln and his Cabinet 
prisoners of war." 

The MiUedgevilli (Georgia) Southern Recorder of the 
30th, inspired by men like Toombs, Cobb, [verson and 
other Leaders, said: "The Government of the Con- 
federate State- musl possess the city of Washington, h 
is folly to think it can be used any longer as the head- 
quarters of the Lincoln Government, as no access can be 
had to it except by passing through Virginia and Mary- 
land. The District of Columbia cannot remain under 



JAMES A. &ASFIBIJ). 140 

the jurisdiction of the United States Congress without 
humiliating Southern pride and defeating Southern rights. 
Both are essential to greatness of character, and both must 
co-operate in the destiny to be achieved." 

A correspondent of the Charleston Courie?', writing 
from Montgomery at about the same time, said :— " The 
desire for taking Washington, I believe, increases every 
hour, and all things, to my thinking, seem tending to 
this consummation. We are in lively hope that, before 
three months roll by, the Government, Congress, depart- 
ments and all, will have removed to the present Federal 
Capital." 

In the face of this testimony, and in the utterances of 
the Confederate Secretary of War at the time of the fall 
of Sumter : " No man can tell where the war this day 
commenced will end ; but I will prophecy that the 
flag which now Haunts the breeze here will float over 
the dome of the old Capitol at Washington before the 
first of May : Let them try Southern chivalry* and test 
the extent of Southern resources and it may float eventu- 
ally over Faneuil Hall, in Boston:" Jefferson Davis, 
speaking more to Europe than to the Confederacy, said : 

" We protest solemnly, in the force of mankind, that 

we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor 

In independence we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, 
no cession of any kind from the States with which we 
have lately confederated. All we ash is to he let aloru ." 

A quaint writer (H. IT. Browiiell), in the Hartford 
(Connecticut) Courant, at that time, made the following 
amusing commentary on Davis's assertion, "All we ask is 
to be let alone : " 



130 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

•• A.s vonce I valked by a dismal swamp, 
There sol an old Cove in the dark and damp, 
And at everybody as passed that road 
A stick or a stone this old Cove throwed ; 
And yenever he Hung his stick or his stone, 
Be'd Bel up a song of ' Let me alone.' 
'Let me alone, for I loves to shy 
These bits of things at the passers-by ; 
Lei me alone, for I've got your tin, 
lots of other traps snugly in ; 
Lei me alone — I am rigging a boat 
To grab votever you've got afloat ; 
In a veek or so I expects to come 
And turn you out of your 'ouse and 'ome. 
I'm a quiet Old Cove,' says he, with a groan, 
'All I axes is, Let me alone.' " 

The writer then foreshadowed the action of the Gov- 
ernment, as follows : 

"Just then came along, on the self-same way, 

Another old Cove, and began for to say : 

( Le1 you alone! that's comin 5 it strong! 

You've ben let alone a darned sight too long! 

Of all the sarce that ever 1 heerd ! 

Put down that st ick ! (You may well look skeered.) 

Let go that stone ! If you ome .-how tight, 

I'll knock you higher than any kite. 

Sou musl have a lesson to stop your tricks, 

And cure you of shying them stones and sticks; 

And I'll have my hardware hack, and my cash, 

And knock your scow into 'tarnal smash ; 

And if ever I catches you round my ranch, 

I'll Btring you up to the nearest branch. 

Tin' besl you can do is to go to bed, 

And keep a decenl tongue in your head ; 

For I reckon, before you and 1 are done. 

You'll wi-li \ou had let honest folks alone.' 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 151 

The Old Cove stopped, and the t'other Old Cove, 

He sot quite still in his cypress grove, 

And he looked at his stick revolvin' slow, 

Vether 'twere safe to shy it or no ; 

And he grumbled on, in an injured tone, 

' All that I ax'd was, Let me alone.'' " 






159 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER VII. 

STATE OF THE NATION IN THE SPRING OF 1861. 

The hostile movements and the hostile utterances of 
the insurgent leaders; the gathering of armed hosts in 
menacing attitude near the National Capital ; the seizure 
of national property, such as forts, custom-houses, arsenals, 
and the mint at New Orleans, with the sanction and 
Bometimes by the command of State authorities, satisfied 
the most hopeful that only a mighty struggle on the part 
of the Government would save the Republic from ruin. 

Great Britain and other European powers showed a 
disposition to "give aid and comfort to the enemy" of 
the CTnion, and even England's noble Queen was induced 
by her unwise ministers to issue a proclamation which 
gave the insurgents the character of "belligerents," and 
so afforded them great moral aid. 

The prof wsions of England to be the uncompromising 
opponent of African slavery, and the practice now of 
England, through its Queen and the Parliament, as the 
strong upholder of that system by helping the slave- 
power in itfl effort8 to perpetuate and nationalize the in- 
stitution of slavery, drew from their own "Punch" the 
following Kiting epigram, for it was clear that the Blave- 
power wa- befrie idedbythe British Government, through 
interested motives connected with trade. It was entitled 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 153 

Shop and Freedom. 

" Though with the North we sympathize, 

It must not be forgotten 
That with the South we've stronger ties, 

Which are composed of cotton, 
Whereof our imports 'mount unto 

A sum of many figures ; 
And where would be our calico, 

Without the toil of niggers ? 

" The South enslaves those fellow-men 

Whom Ave love all so dearly ; 
The North keeps commerce bound again, 

Which touches us more nearly. 
Thus a divided duty we 

Perceive in this hard matter — 
Free trade, or sable brothers free ? 

Oh, will we choose the latter !" 

The disloyal utterances of politicians in the Free-labor 
States and of the disloyal Press of that section of the 
Republic then in sympathy with the Secessionists, pre- 
sented a most grave feature in the aspect of the times, 
for consideration; for it was clearly perceived that the 
friends of the Government, whether in the council or in 
the field, would have a sly, deceptive and venomous 
serpent in their rear, ever ready to use its poisonous 
fanes in half concealment, After the South Carolina 
Ordinance of Secession was adopted, an ex-Governor of 
Illinois wrote to the future leader of the great Rebellion, 
saying : 

"I am, in heart and soul, for the South, as they are 
right in the principles and possess the Constitution, It 

the public mind will bear it, the seat of Government, the 



154 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Goyernmenl itself, and the Army and Navy, ought to re- 
inain with the South and the Constitution. I have been 
promulgating the above sentiment, although it is rather 
revolutionary. A Provisional Government shouldhe es- 
tablished at Washington to receive the power of Hie outgoing 
President, and for the President elect to take the oath of 
office out of Slave Territory. ... If the Slave -States 
would unite and form a convention, they might have the 
:■ to coerce the North into terms to amend the Con- 
st ii ution so as to protect Slavery more effectually." — Ex- 
tract of a Letter from John Reynolds, of Belleville, Illi- 
nois. ti> Jefferson Paris and ex-Governor William Smith, 
of Virginia, dated December 28, 1860. 

An ex-President of the United States wrote to the 
same man : 

" Without discussing the question of right — of ab- 
stract power to secede — I have never believed that actual 
disruption of the Union can occur without blood ; and if, 
through the madness of Northern Abolitionists, that dire 
calamity must come, the fighting will not be along Mason 
and Dixon's line merely. It will be within our own 
borders) in our own streets, between the two classes of 
citizens to whom 1 have referred. Those who defy law 
and scout constitutional obligations will, if we ever reach 
the arbitrament of arms, find occupation enough at home." 
Exttact of a Letter from Franklin Pierce to Jefferson 
Paris, January G, 18G0. 

At thai time Fernando "Wood was Mayor of the city 
of New V<u-k. He was a special favorite of the worst 
elements of society in thai cosmopolitan city, and sym- 
pathized with the conspirators against the Republic, 
during the civil war which ensued. Four days before the 
lature of the State of Now York passed its patriotic 




VluJU • \L . L . 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 157 

resolutions,* this disloyal man sent a message to the 
Common Council (January 7, 1861), in which he mentioned 
the advantages which the people of that city might 
secure by following the example of those of South Caro- 
lina in revolutionary measures. 

" Why should not New York City," he said, " instead 
of supporting by her contributions in revenue two-thirds 
the expenses of the United States, become also equally 
independent ? As a free city, with but a nominal duty 
on imports, her local government could be supported with- 
out taxation upon her people. Thus we could live free 
from taxes, and have cheap goods, nearly duty free. In 
this she would have the whole and united support of the 
Southern States, as well as of all other States, to whose 
interests and rights, under the Constitution, she has al- 
ways been true. 

" If the Confederacy is broken up," he continued, 
" the Government is dissolved ; and it behooves every dis- 
tinct community, as well as every individual, to take care 
of themselves. When disunion has become a fixed and 
certain fact, why may not New York disrupt the bands 
which bind her to a venal and corrupt master — to a people 
and a party that have plundered her revenues, attempted 
to ruin her commerce, taken away the power of self- 
government, and destroyed the confederacy of which she 
was the proud Empire City ? Amid the gloom which the 
present and prospective condition of things must cast over 
the country, New York, as a free city, may shed the only 
light and hope for a future reconstruction of our blessed 
confederacy." 

The Board of Aldermen ordered three thousand copies 
of this message to be printed in document form ; and 
these utterances of the Chief Magistrate of the great city 

* See page 129. 



158 THE BIOGIlAPJjy OF 

of New York was used by leaders of public opinion in 
the South, to Btimulate the insurrection. One of the 
favorite writers for D< Bow : 's Heview (the most stately, 
oracular and pretentious of the publications in the Slave- 
labor States), and who was a leader of the peculiar Vir- 
ginia aristocracy in those days, pronounced this proposition 
"the rnosl brilliant that these eventful times have given 
birth to," and then proceeded in the following style, 
characteristic of the writers and speakers of his class at 
.that time, to give his views on the subject, as follows: 

••Should New York fail to erect herself into a free 
port and separate republic ; should bhe remain under the 
dominion of the corrupt, venal wire- workers of Albany, 
and of the immoral, infidel, agrarian, free-love Democracy 

of west ciii New York ; should she put herself under the 
rule of Puritan.-, the vilest, nio.-t selfish and unprincipled 
of the human race ; should she join a northern confeder- 
acy ; should she make New England, western New York, 
northern <>lno, northern Indiana, or northern Illinois her 
masters ; Bhould she make enemies of her Southern 
friends, and deliver herself up to the tender mercies of 
Ikt Northern enemies, .-he will sink to rise no more. Bet- 
ter, a thousand times better, to conic under the dominion 
of free negroes, of gypsies, than of Yankees, or low Ger- 
mans, or Canadians. Gypsies and free negroes have many 
amiable, noble, and generous traits: Yankees, sour-krout 
Germans, and Canadians none. Senator Wade says, and 
Seward, too, that the North will absorb Canada. They 
are half true ; the vile, sensual, animal, brutal, infidel, 
Buperstitious democracy of Canada and the Yankee States 
will coalesce ; and Senator Johnson of Tennessee will join 

them. 

•• Bui when Canada, and western New York, and New 

England, and the whole beastly, puritanic, 'sour-krout, 5 

o, infidel, Buperstitious, licentious, democratic 



JAMES A. GAHF1ELU. 159 

population of the North become the masters of New York, 
—what then ? Outside of the city, the State of New York 
is Yankee and puritanical ; composed of as base, unprin- 
cipled, superstitious, licentious, and agrarian aiul anarch- 
ical population as any on earth. Nay, we do not hesitate 
to say, it is the vilest population on earth. If the city 
does not secede, and erect a separate republic, this popu- 
lation, aided by the ignorant, base, brutal, sensual German 
infidels of the northwest, the stupid democracy of Canada 
(for Canada will, in some way, coalesce with the North), 
and the arrogant and tyrannical people of New England 
will become masters of the destinies of New York. They 
hate her for her sympathies with the South, and will so 
legislate as to divert all her western trade to outlets 
through Chicago, the St. Lawrence, Portland, and Bos- 
ton. She will then be cut off from her trade North and 
South. In fine, she must set up for herself or be ruined." 
—George Fitzhugh in De Bow's Review for February, 
1861. 

At a large political meeting in Philadelphia on Jan- 
uary 16, 1861, one of the resolutions adopted declared : 

" We are utterly opposed to any such compulsion as is 
demanded by a portion of the Republican party ; and the 
Democratic party of the North will, by all constitutional 
means, and with its moral and political influence, oppose 
any such extreme policy, or a fratricidal war thus to be 
inaugurated." On the 22d of February, a political State 
Convention was held at Harrisburg, the capital of Penn- 
sylvania, when the members said, in a resolution : — " We 
will, by all proper and legitimate means, oppose, dis- 
countenance, and prevent any attempt on the part oi the 
Kepublicans in power to make any armed aggressions upon 
the Southern States, especially so long as laws contraven- 
ing their rights shall remain unrepealed on the Statute- 
books of Northern States, and so long as the just demands 



160 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

of the South shall continue to be unrecognized by the 
Republican majorities in these States, and unsecured by 
proper amendatory explanations of the Constitution." 

Such utterances in the great State of Pennsylvania, 
and similar ones elsewhere, by the chosen representatives 
of a powerful party in convention assembled, encouraged 
the conspirators in a belief that there would be no war 
made upon them, and for that reason they were defiant 
everywhere and ou all ocea>ions. 

Many influential public journals in the Free-labor 
States advocated the right of secession and the wrong of 
'"coercion." One of these, more widely read and more 
frequently quoted in the South as the exponent of public 
opinion in the North than any other (the New York 
Herald), had said so early as November 9, 1860, three 
days after the election of Mr. Lincoln : 

" For far less than this [the election of Mr. Lincoln] 
our fathers seceded from Great Britain; and they. left 
revolution organized in everj State, to act whenever it is 
demanded by public opinion. The confederation is held 
together only by public opinion. Each State is organized 
a- a complete government, holding the purse and wielding 
the Bword, possessing the right to break the tie of the 
confederation as a nation might break a treaty, and to re- 
pel coercion a- a nation might repel invasion.'' 

This doctrine of State supremacy, the foundation of 
that of Secession, was advocated by the opposition press 
all over the North, and abuse of t lie administration and 
tin- National Government was freely uttered throughout 
tin- Free-labor States. Anti-slavery meetings M'ere broken 
up by violence, and at aboul that time an association Mas 
formed in the city of New York called "The American 
Society for the Promotion of Onion," of which Professor 



JAMES A. GAUFIELD. 161 

Samuel F. B. Morse was President. It was the powerful 
coadjutor (nay, progenitor) of the " Peace Faction," or 
'"Peace Party,"' which opposed the war for the preserva- 
tion of the Union from the beginning to the end, and 
cast obstacles in the way of the success of the Govern- 
ment in suppressing the rebellion. Reiterating the idea 
put forth a few weeks before by Rev. Dr. S my the, of 
Charleston, S. C, in denunciation of the doctrines of the 
Declaration of Independence, this society, in its pro- 
gramme, said : 

"The popular declaration that all men are created 
equal, and entitled to liberty, intended to embody the 
sentiments of our ancestors respecting the doctrine of the 
Divine right of kings and nobles, and perhaps, also, the 
more doubtful sentiment of the French school, may be 
understood to indicate both a sublime truth and a per- 
nicious error." Again : — " Our attention will not be con- 
fined to slavery, but this will be, at present, our main 
topic. Four millions of immortal beings, incapable of 
self-care, and indisposed to industry and foresight, are 
providentially committed to the hands of our Southern 
friends. This stupendous trust they cannot put from 
them if they would. Emancipation, were it possible, 
would be rebellion against Providence, and destruction to 
the colored race." 

The society favored the slave system, and advocated 
the dissolution of the Union. They wished to let their 
"wayward sisters depart in peace." 

While these indications of the dangerous sentiments 
cherished by the disloyal politicians of the North and 
the newspapers in their interest disturbed the more timid 
loyal people, there were stout hearts in authority every- 
where in the Free-labor States ready and eager to combat 
these enemies of their country. Governors and Legis- 



162 lUl- BIOGRAPHY OF 

latures spoke oul in thunder tones ool to be mistaken 
against the whole Becession movement, and supported 
their words by corresponding acts. 

Maine, lying on the extreme eastern border of the 
Republic, and adjoining the British possessions, had, in 
L860, a population of over six hundred thousand. Its 
people watched the rising tide of revolution with inter- 
est, and were among the first to offer barriers against its 
destructive overflow. The idea of nationality, so uni- 
versally a sentiment among intelligent men all over the 
free-labor States, made such action instinctive; and 
everywhere assurances of aid were given to the Chief 
Magistrate of the Republic. 

Israel Washburne, Jr.. was then Governor of Maine. 
In his message to the Legislature, on the day of its as- 
sembling at Augusta, he ably reviewed the history of the 
Slavery question, and recommenced the repeal of any 
laws that were unconstitutional. ''Allow no stain," he 
said, "on the faith and devotion of the State to the Con- 
stitution and the rights of the States.*' lie declared that, 
the concessions demanded by the politicians of the Slave- 
labor States were wholly inadmissible and incompatible 
with the safety of the Constitution, as the exponent and 
defender of republican institutions. He stigmatized Be- 
rn as a crime without the shadow of a right. ''There 

is no such righl in the Constitution," he said. "Congress 

cannot grant it : the States cannot concede it, and only by 
the people of the States, through a change in the Consti- 
tution, can it he conferred. The laws, then, must be exe- 
cuted, or this, the be8t, because the freest and most 
beneficenl Government that the world has ever Been, is 
destroyed," 



JAMES .1. QARFIBLD. 108 

The Governor pledged the State of Maine to a sup- 
port of the Union, and he was sustained in this by the 

Legislature, who, on the lGth, declared l>y a large ma- 
jority the attachment of the people of that State to 
Union and loyalty to the Government, and requested the 
Governor to assure the President of that attachment and 
loyalty, and " that the entire resources of the State, in 
men and money," were " pledged to the Administration 
in defence and support of the Constitution and Union.'' 1 
Willing to make concessions for the sake of peace, the 
State Senate afterward passed a bill (March 11, 1861) re- 
pealing the Personal Liberty Act. 

Massachusetts was an early and conspicuous actor in 
the great drama we are considering. In many aspects, in 
nature and society, it was totally unlike South Carolina, 
the cradle of the rebellion. Its people were the most 
energetic, positive, and ever-active of any State in the 
Union, and its wealth for each person was greater than 
any other. It was regarded by the people of the Slave- 
labor States as the central generator of the Abolition 
force that threatened the destruction of slavery ; and 
South Carolina orators and journalists made Massachu- 
setts the synonym of Puritanism, which they affected to 
despise, as vulgar in theory and in practice. It must be 
confessed that much that was done in religion, in politics. 
and in social life in Massachusetts did not harmonize with 
the opinions, habits, and feelings of the people of South 
Carolina. 

It was evident at the beginning of January, 1861, that 
the contagion of secession was spreading too rapidly, and was 
too malignant in its character, "to be arrested either by 
moral suasion or by compromises and concessions. The time 



104 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

had arrived for courageous, conscientious, and manly ac- 
tion. Nathaniel P. Banks, the retiring Governor of 
Massachusetts, in his valedictory address to the Legisla- 
ture (January 3, 1S01), took open and unequivocal 
ground against secession, declaring that the North would 
never Bubmit to the revolutionary acts of the Southern 
conspirators. His successor, Governor Andrew, was 
equally energetic and outspoken. His words constantly 
grew into action. He saw approaching danger, and dis- 
patched agents to other New England States, to propose 
a military combination in support of the Government, 
first in defending Washington City from seizure by the 
insurgents within and around it, and afterward in en- 
forcing the laws. At the same time, all of the volunteer 
companies of the State, with an aggregate membership of 
about five thousand, commenced drilling nightly in their 
armories. Governor Andrew also sent one of his staff to 
Washington, to consult with General Scott and other 
officers, civil and military, concerning the dispatch of 
Massachusetts troops to the Capital, in the event of in- 
surrectionary movements against it. It was the blood of 
Massachusetts soldiers that was first poured out in the 
terrible war for the life of the Republic, that soon com- 
menced. 

Rhode Island, the smallest of the States, was full of 
patriotic zeal. Her large manufacturing interests Mere 
intimately connected with the States in which insurrec- 
tions had commenced, yet no considerations of self-interest 

could allure her people from their love of the OniOD and 

allegiance to the National Government. Her youthful 

rnor I William Sprague), anxious for peace and union, 

i mended, in hi- message to the Legislature of Rhode 



JAMES A. OA11FIELD. id.-, 

Island, the repeal of the Personal Liberty Act <>n its 
Statute-book, " not from fear or cowardice," he said, " Inn 
from a brave determination, in the face of threats and 
sneers, to live up to the Constitution and all its guaranties, 

the better to testify our love for the Union, and the more 
firmly to exact allegiance to it from all others." That 
act was repealed at the close of January, 1S61 ; and this 
measure was regarded as the forerunner of other conces- 
sions that might bring about reconciliation. 

But the spirit of the conspirators was then unknown 
and unsuspected. They had resolved to accept no 
compromises nor concessions, and they sneered at gener- 
ous acts like this as the "pusillanimity of cowardly 
Yankees." 1 It was the first and the last olive branch offered 
to traitors by Rhode Island. When, some weeks later, 
they struck a blow with deadly intent, she sent against 
them a sword in the hands of her Governor and other 
citizens that performed brave deeds in the cause of our 
nationality. 

In the remaining New England States — New Hamp- 
shire, Yermont and Connecticut — nothing specially note- 
worthy was done in relation to the secession movements, 
before the insurgents began actual war by attacking Fort 
Sumter, in April. But in the great State of New York, 
the population of which was then nearly four millions, ami 
whose chief city was the commercial metropolis of the 
Republic, much was done to attract public attention. 

The Legislature of that State assembled at the be- 
ginning of January, 1861. The Governor, E. B. Morgan, 
was a staunch patriot. On the first day of the session 
resolutions concerning the state of the country were intro- 
duced, and referred to a Select Committee of Five, who 



1 c,.; THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

reported a series of resolutions, which were adopted on 
the 1 ltli. The preamble spoke of "the insurgent State 
of South Carolina," and its overt acts of war. The firsl 
resolution then declared that the people of the State of 
New York were firmly attached to the Republic, and that, 
impressed with the value of the Onion, they tendered to 
the President, through their Chief Magistrate, whatever 
aid in men and money might be required to enable him 
to enforce the laws. They directed the Governor tosend 
a copv of these resolutions to the President and to the 
Governors of all the States. They produced much irrita- 
tion in the Slave-labor States, and at the same time pro- 
foundly impressed the people therein with a distrust of 
the assurance of their politicians that Secession would 
be peaceful and that there would he no war. 

While the Legislature of New York was firmly re- 
solved to support the National Government with arms, if 
necessary, it was ever willing to try first the power of 
peaceful measures. It responded to Virginia's proposition 
for a Peace Congress by appointing live delegates thereto, 
who were instructed not to take any part in the proceed- 
ings, unless a majority of the Free-labor States were repre- 
sented. From that time forth, the people of New York 
watched the curse of events with intense interest ; and 
when the National flag was dishonored at Fort Sumter, 
their patriotism was most conspicuous. 

The attitude of the authorities of New Jersey was 

favorable to the insurgents. A majority of the members 
of the Legislature, with the Governor (Charles S. Olden), 

were attached to the Democratic party. The Legislature 

ii,, t at Trenton on January s . and a majority of a Com- 



JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 

niittee on National Affairs reported a series of resolutions 
as " the sense of the people," in favor of making a com- 
promise with the insurgent slave-holders. The Republi- 
can members denied that such was "the sense of the peo- 
ple ; " declared the Avillingness of the people to aid in the 
execution of all the laws of Congress ; affirmed their ad- 
hesion to the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, with a 
qualification ; asserted the nationality of the Government, 
in opposition to the doctrine of State Supremacy ; de- 
clared it to be the duty of the National Government to 
maintain its authority everywhere within the limits of 
the Republic ; and pledged the faith and power of New 
Jersey in aid of that Government to any required extent. 
This pledge the people of that State nobly redeemed. 

The voice of the great State of Pennsylvania, with its 
three millions of inhabitants, as expressed in a great meet- 
ing held in Philadelphia on December 13th, 1860, gave out 
;i feeble and uncertain sound. The tone of nearly all the 
speakers was one of submission to the arrogant demands 
of the slave power. 

The resolutions adopted by the meeting proposed the 
repeal of the Personal Liberty Act of Pennsylvania, and 
the recognition of the obligations of the people to assist 
in the full execution of the Fugitive Slave Law ; pointed 
with "pride and satisfaction to the recent conviction and 
punishment, in Philadelphia,''' of those who had attempted 
to rescue an alleged fugitive from bondage ; recommended 
the passage of a law, providing for the payment of full 
remuneration to the owner of a slave who might lose 
him by such rescue ; declared that they recognized slaves 
as property, in accordance with the decision of the 
Supreme Court of the United States; and also, "that all 



n;s Till: BIOGRAPHY OF 

denunciations of Slavery, as existing in the United States, 
and of onr fellow-citizens who maintain that institution, 
and who hold slaves under it, are inconsistent with the 
spiril of brotherhood and kindness which ought to animate 
all who live under and profess to support the Constitution 
of the American Onion." 

Thepeople of Pennsylvania were more patriotic, broad- 
minded and jus! than their political leaders; and when the 
time for action came, they poured out their blood and 
treasure in profusion in defence of the Republic. 

Next west of Pennsylvania lay Ohio, with two million 
three hundred thousand inhabitants. It was first settled 
chiefly by New Englanders, and was a part of the great 
Northwestern Territory, which was solemnly consecrated 
to Free-labor by the Congress of the old Confederation, in 
17s7. It was a vast agricultural State, filled with indus- 
trious and energetic inhabitants, who loved freedom, and 
revered the National Government as a great blessing in 
the world. Their Chief Magistrate, at the beginning of 
the troubles, was William Dcnnison, Jr., who was an 
opponent of the Slave system, and loyal to the Government 
and the Constitution. In his message to the Legislature 
which met at Columbus on the 7th of January, he took a 
Lofty, patriotic position. He said: " Determined to do no 
wrong, we will not, contentedly, submit to wrong." 

Five day- afterward (January 12, 1861), the Legi.-la- 

tuiv passed a Beries of resolutions in which they denounced 

ion movements, and promised, for the people of 

Ohio, their firm support of the National Government, in 

fortfl to maintain it- jusl authority. Two day8 later, 

they reaffirmed this resolution, and pledged "the entire 
power and resources of the State for a strict maintenance 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 171 

of the Constitution and laws by the General Government, 
by whomsoever administered." This position the people 

of Ohio held throughout the war with marvellous stead- 
fastness, in spite of the wicked machinations of traitors 
among themselves, who were friends of the conspirators 
and their cause. 

Adjoining Ohio on the west, lay Indiana, another 
great and growing State carved out of the Northwestern 
Territory, with over one million three hundred and fifty 
thousand inhabitants, and real and personal estate valued 
at about five hundred and thirty million dollars. There 
was burning in the hearts of the people of that State the 
most intense loyalty to the Union, but there was no occa- 
sion for its special revealment until the attack on Fort 
Sumter, in April, 1S61, when it blazed out terribly for 
the enemies of the Republic. The sons of its soil were 
found on every battle-field during the first year and a half 
of the war, and the people were grandly faithful to the 
end. 

North of Ohio and Indiana, on a vast peninsula, 
whose shores are washed by magnificent inland seas, lies 
Michigan, with a population then of almost eight hun- 
dred thousand. Its acting Governor (Moses Wisner) 
denounced the Secessionists of the South and all their 
ways, and said, concerning the Personal Liberty Bill of 
that State and other acts in opposition to the Fugitive 
Slave Law : " Let them stand ; this is no time for timid 
and vacillating counsels, while the cry of treason is ring- 
ing in our ears." 

The new Governor of Michigan (Austin Blair), who 
was inaugurated the next day (January 3, 1861), took 
substantially the same ground. He argued that secession 



17-.' 'I1II-: BIOGRAPHY "/•' 

was disintegration, and that the Republic was a compact 

Nation, ami not a League of States. lie recommended 
the Legislature to make the Loyalty and patriotism of the 
people of Michigan apparent to the country; whereupon, 
that body passed some resolutions (February 2) pledging 
to the National Government all the military power and 
material resources of the State. They expressed an un- 
willingness to offer compromises and concessions to 
traitors, and refused to send delegates to the Peace Con- 
gress, or to repeal the Personal Liberty Acts. The best 
blood of Michigan flowed freely in the war. and the 
people nobly sustained the Government in the struggle 
for the life of the Republic. 

Illinois, the home of the President elect, and more 
populous than its neighbor, Indiana, the number of its 
inhabitants being over one million seven hundred 
thousand, had a loyal Governor at the beginning of L861, 
in the person of Richard Yates. The Legislature of the 
State assembled at Springfield, on the 7th of January. 
The Governor's message was temperate and patriotic ; and 
he summed up what he believed to be the sentiment of 
the people of his State, in the words of General Jackson's 
toast, thirty years before: — ''Our Federal Union: it 
musi be preserved." Little was done at that time by the 
Legislature, excepting the appointment of delegates to 
the Peace Congress; but afterward the Governor and the 
people of Illinois performed a glorious part in the won- 
derful drama. 

Northward of Illinois, "Wisconsin was spread out be- 
tween lakes Michigan and Superior and the Mississippi 
River, with a population of almost eight hundred 
thousand. Its voters were Republicans by fully twenty 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 17: 1 . 

thousand majority. Its Governor, Alexander W. Randall, 

was thoroughly loyal. "The signs indicate," he said in his 
message to the Legislature (January 10, 1861), "that there 
may arise a contingency in the condition of the Govern- 
ment, under which it may become necessary to respond 
to the call of the National Government for men and 
means to sustain the integrity of the Union, and thwart 
the designs of men engaged in an organized treason.'" 
The Legislature was ready to respond to these words by 
generous action, but no occasion seemed to call for it 
until after the attack on Fort Sumter. Then the people 
of "Wisconsin gave men and money without stint to the 
great cause of American nationality. 

"Westward of the Mississippi River and stretching 
northward along its course, from the borders of Missouri, 
were the young and vigorous States of Iowa and Min- 
nesota ; and across the continent, on the shores of the 
Pacific Ocean, was California. The hearts of the people 
of these States beat responsive to Union sentiments 
whenever uttered. Iowa had nearly seven hundred 
thousand inhabitants. Its Governor, Samuel J. Ivirk- 
wood, was thoroughly loyal. When the President called 
for troops, he said to the Legislature : — " In this emer- 
gency Iowa must not, and does not, occupy a doubtful 
position. For the Union our fathers formed, and for the 
Government they framed so wisely and so well, the 
people of Iowa are ready to pledge every fighting man 
in the State and every dollar of her money and credit." 
That pledge was nobly redeemed. One-tenth of the 
entire population of the State, or seventy thousand men, 
went to the field ! 

The people of Minnesota w T ere equally faithful to the 



171 THE BIOGBAPHY OF 

oldflag. Alexander Ramsey was Governor. The Legis- 
lature that assembled on the 26th of January passed a 
scric- of loyal resolutions, declaring the Constitution a,- it 
w.i> to be Bufljcient for the whole Onion; denouncing 
secession as revolution : condemning in severest terms the 
treasonable acts al Charleston, saying, that when one or 
more States appear in military array against the Govern- 
ment, ii could discover no other honorable or patriotic 
resource than to test, by land and sea, " the full strength 
<>f the Federal authority under our National flag." It 
gave assurance of an earnest desire for peace with and 
good-will toward the people of the South; thanked 
General Scott for his patriotic efforts, and declared that 
the people of Minnesota would never consent to the 
obstruction of the free navigation of the Mississippi river, 
"from its source to its mouth, by any power hostile to 
the Federal Government." 

The attitude of the three border (so-called) Slave-labor 
Si.iies, Delaware. Maryland and Kentucky, after the 
attack on Sumter, was peculiar. There was a fierce 
struggle against secession, in Maryland, by the loyal 
people of the State. Early in L861, Governor Thomas 
II. Hicks was ;i loyal man, and opposed the secessionists 
privately and officially. They tried hard, hut in vain, to 
counteract his influence. The best men of the State, of 
all parties, frowned upon their work. A Union party 
was organized, composed of vital elements, and grew in 
strength and stature everv day. Maryland, and especially 
Baltimore, became a greal battle-field of opinion between 
the champions of Right and Wrong. The former 
triumphed gloriously; and in less than four years from 



JAMES A. QALiFIELB. 175 

that time slavery became utterly extinct in Maryland by 
the constitutional act of its own authorities. 

Delaware, lying still farther than Maryland within the 
embrace of the influence of society in the Free-labor 
States, had but little to say on the subject of secession, 
and that little, officially spoken, was in the direction 
of loyalty. Its Governor (William Burton), several of 
its State Senators, its Representatives in the National 
Senate, and many leading politicians were in sympathy 
with the secessionists, but the people w r ere conservative 
and loyal. Though a small State, Delaware contributed 
quite a large number of soldiers for the Union Army. 
It is a noteworthy fact that it was the only Slave-labor 
State the soil of which was not moistened with the blood 
of men slain in battle. 

The position of the people of Kentucky, at the break- 
ing out of the Civil "War, was painful. The authorities 
and some of the leading politicians were disloyal. The 
Governor (Beriah Magoffin), as we have seen, responded 
to the President's call for troops in insulting words. He 
was followed by fierce denunciations of the National 
Government by its leading journal, which was professed- 
ly Union in sentiment. This was followed by a great 
" Union Meeting,' 1 at Louisville. At that meeting it was 
resolved that Kentucky reserved to herself " the right to 
choose her own position ; and that, while her natural 
sympathies are with those who have a common interest 
in the protection of slavery, she still acknowledges her 
loyalty and fealty to the Government of the United 
States, which she will cheerfully render until that Gov- 
ern/ment hecomes aggressive, tyrannical, and regardk 88 of 
<>>(/■ rights in slave projicrty." They declared that the 



176 TEE BIOGRAPHY OF 

States were the peers of the National Government, and 
gave the world to understand thai the latter should not 
be allowed to u.-e "sanguinary or coercive measures to 
bring hack the seceded States." They pledged equally 

to fidelity to the CTnited States ami to Kentucky. This 
avowal of peculiar neutrality— of conditional adhesion to 
the Union, paralyzed the strength of the Union senti- 
ment in Kentucky, and brought upon that State the 
dreadful woes of Civil War. 

In the rapidly-drawn sketch in this chapter of the state 
of tin; Nation in the Spring of 1861, when the great 
Civil War began, I have endeavored to give the reader a 
tolerably clear view of the momentous causes which led 
Garfield, before the close of the Summer, to leave the 
(juiet halls of an institution of learning, and the more 
stirring Legislative chaml - of his native State, to 
plunge into the thickest of the fray on fields of battle 
In the presence of such conditions, his great soul, com- 
prehending in all its grandeur the value of his country to 
himself, his kindred, and mankind, could not do other- 
wise. 



JAMES A. GAliFlELD. 171 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AFFAIRS IN KENTUCKY. — GARFIELD^ FIRST MILITARY CAM- 
PAIGN. 

Mr. Garfield intended, from the day when Fort Sum- 
ter was attacked- and the President called for troops to 
suppress the rising rebellion, to enter the army as soon as 
his presence there seemed to promise more useful service 
than in the Ohio Senate. In the latter body he was very 
active and efficient. He was the recognized leader of the 
Republican members in the Legislature at Columbus. 

Garfield was in perfect accord with the most radical 
public opinion concerning Slavery, and on every occasion 
he set his face firmly against every attempt to compro- 
mise with the slave-holders at this crisis. He strenuously 
opposed a bill to that effect which was presented to the 
Ohio Senate, and he was one of eight Senators who voted 
against it, on the 17th of April (1S61). 

Some days earlier than this a bill had been introduced 
in the Legislature appropriating one hundred thousand 
dollars for war purposes. A bill was soon afterward in- 
troduced for an appropriation of one million dollars for a 
similar purpose, in response to a message from Goyernor 
Dennison announcing the President's call for troops. 
That message concluded as follows : 

" But as the contest may grow to greater dimensions 
than is now anticipated, 1 deem it my duty to recommend 
to the General Assembly of this State to make provision. 



178 THE BIOQRAPHY OF 

proportionate to Its means to assist the National authori- 
ties in restoring the integrity and strength of the Union, 
in all its amplitude, as the only means oi' preserving the 
rights of all the States, and insuring the permanent peace 
ami prosperitj of the whole country. 1 earnestly recom- 
mend, also, than an appropriation of not less than four 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars he immediately made 
tor the purchase of arms and equipments tor the use of 
the volunteer militia of the State. 1 need not remind 
you of the pressing exigency for the prompt organization 
and arming of the military force of the State." 

As an evidence of the melting away of party lines 
under the heat of patriotic excitement, it may he stated 
that, within twenty-four hours after the receipt of the 
President's call, that bill was matured, carried through 
the several readings in the Senate, and passed. This was 
done under the wise leadership of Senator Garfield. 

While this hill was halting in the Lower House, the 
Senate, again led by Garfield, matured and passed a hill 
defining ami providing punishment for the crime of trea- 
son against the State of Ohio. Garfield, as chairman of 
the committee to winch the subject had been referred, 
made an able report, of which Justice Swayne, of the 
United States Supreme Court, said : u I should be very 
willing to put my name to that report." The bill de- 
clared any resident of the State who gave aid and com- 
forl to theenemiesof the United States guilty of treason 
again si the State, to be punished by imprisonment at 
hard labor in the penitentiary for life. This bill, it was 

nndersl I at the time, was aimed specially at Yallan- 

digham, the active enemy of his country all through the 
war. Wiih the passage of these hills all semblance of 
party opposition to necessary war measures disappeared 



JAMBS A GARFIELD. 179 

from the proceedings of the Legislature. Mr. Vallandig- 

ham visited the capital and earnestly remonstrated with 
the Democrats for giving their sanction to the war ; but 
the patriotic enthusiasm of the crisis could not be con- 
trolled by party discipline. 

Before the adjournment of the Legislature of Ohio, 
the acting Speaker had resigned to take command in one 
of the regiments of volunteers starting for Washington. 
Two leading Senators had been appointed Brigadier- 
generals, and large numbers of the other members had, 
in one capacity and another, entered the service. 

" It was the first of the war legislatures," says Mr. 
lieid. " It met the first shock ; under the sudden pres- 
sure matured the first military laws. It labored under 
difficulties inseparable from so unexpected a plunge into 
duties so novel. But it may now be safely said that in 
patriotism, in zeal and ability, it was second to neither of 
its successors, and that in the exuberance of patriotic sen- 
timent which wiped out party lines and united all in com- 
mon efforts to meet the sudden danger, it surpassed them 
both." 

Twenty full companies had been offered to the Gov- 
ernor of Ohio before the bombardment of Fort Sumter 
had ended. With the call of the President for troops, 
the excitement throughout the State became intense. 
Men of every station in life entered the service. The 
President of Kenyon College took his place in the ranks 
as a private soldier. Militia officers telegraphed their 
readiness for orders. Regiment after regiment, mostly- 
in detailed companies, arrived at Columbus, made up 
largely from well-known militia organizations from lead- 



180 Till. BIOGRAPHY OF 

ing towns and cities. Bui there were no arms, uniforms, 
equipments or transportation for them. 

The calls of the Government at Washington were very 
importunate. " Send them on instantly," telegraphed the 
Secretary of War (Mr. Cameron); "we will equip them 
here." Long before dawn on April 19, L861, greal rail- 
way trains, filled with an unarmed crowd of militia, 
moved out of Columbus for Washington, the passengers 
cheered by hundreds of citizens of both sexes, and sent on 
their way with fervenl "God bless } - ous." Before they 
started fresh arrivals had more than tilled their places in 
Camp Jackson, in the woods near by. 

Ohio was nearly bare of weapons of war at this junc- 
ture. Governor Dennison heard that the State of Illinois 
possessed enough and to spare, and he resolved to apply 
to Governor Yates for some of them. He sent Senator 
Garfield to tin; [llinois capital, armed with a proper 
requisition. lie was successful, and speedily shipped five 
thousand muskets and rifles to Columbus. 

Then Mr. Garfield was instructed to lay before Gov- 
ernor Vatc.-a suggestion a- to the propriety of uniting the 
Illinois and all other troop.-, in the Mississippi Valley 
under one Ohio Major-General, who had already been 

appointed, ami so create a military department in which 
[llinois, Indiana, Ohio and other troops should be under 
one head. Ii was done, and so was createdthe Depart- 
ment of the Ohio, of which Major-General George lb 
McClellan was the child'. To all of Governor Dennison's 
effort - at this time for putting Ohio in a condition to en- 
gage strongly in the impending struggle, Mr. Garfield 
lent his advice and personal services. 

I hare -aid it was the intention of Senator Garfield 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 181 

from the begin ning to enter the military service. On his 
return from Illinois, he immediately set to work recruit- 
ing a company, mainly from among the students of Hiram 
Eclectic Institute. It was speedily filled and promptly 
offered for service. It constituted the nucleus of the 
Forty-Second regiment of Ohio Volunteers, of which 
Senator Garfield was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel by 
Governor Dennison. He devoted live weeks to the 
organization and drill of the regiment, and when it was 
ready .for service, Garfield was promoted to its chief com- 
mand. His commission of Colonel was dated August 14, 
1861. 

This regiment was organized at Camp Chase, near 
Columbus. The organization was completed on November 
26, and on December 14, orders were received to take the 
field. The Department of the Ohio was then under the 
command of General Don Carlos Buell, whose head-quar- 
ters were at Louisville. The regiment proceeded by 
railway to Cincinnati, and reached there at nine o'clock, 
j>. m. It had been ordered to Prestonburg, on the Big 
Sandy river, Kentucky. At Cincinnati, Garfield, in 
obedience to orders, sent his regiment by steamboat to 
Cattlesville, Kentucky, at the mouth of the Big Sandy ; 
and there took the cars to Louisville to report to General 
Buell. That interview is thus described by Captain F. 
H. Mason, in his " History of the Forty-Second Regi- 
ment : " 

"On the evening of the 16th, Colonel Garfield reached 
Louisville and sought General Buell at his headquarters. 
He found a _cold, silent, austere man. who asked a few 
direct questions, revealed nothing, and eyed the new- 
comer with a curious, searching expression, as though 



182 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

trying to look into the untried Colonel, and divine whether 
lie would succeed or fail. Taking- a map, General Buell 
pointed out the position of Marshall's forces in Eastern 
Kent uck v, marked the location in which the Union troops 
in thai districl were posted, explained the nature of the 
country and its supplies, and then dismissed hia visitor 
with tii" remark : • Ji" you were in command of the sub- 
department of Eastern Kentucky, what would you do? 
pome here to-morrow morning at nine o'clock and tell 
me.' 

"Colonel Garfield returned to his hotel, procured a 
map of Kentucky, the last census report, paper, pen and 
ink, and Bat down to his task. Be studied the roads, re- 
sources, and population of every county in Eastern Ken- 
tucky. At daylight he was still at work, but at nine 
o'clock he was at General Buell's headquarters with a 
sketch of his plans. Buell read it and made it the basis 
of his Special Order Xo. 35, Army of the Ohio, December 
17, 1861, by which the Eighteenth Brigade, Army of the 
Ohio, was organized." 

The forces constituting this brigade were four regi- 
ments of infantry and several squadrons of cavalry. 
Buell's order directed the colon* 1 commanding the brigade 
to proceed to the Valley of the Big Sandy river, which 
was then invaded by a strong- fore ■ of Confederates led 
by Humphry Marshall, a graduate of the West Poinl 
Military Aoademy in 1832; was under General Taylor in 
the war with .Mexico; was a member of Congress during 
sessions between L 849 and L859; a commissioner to 
China, and in L861, made a G-eneral in the- Confederate 

army. He was unwieldy in person, being very obese. 

Lei as here take a brief view of civil and military 
affairs in Kentucky, at this juncture, so as to more clearly 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 185 

understand the significance of Garfield's first military 
campaign. He was in command of the brigade. 

The Loyalists in the Kentucky Legislature foiled the 
efforts of Governor Magoffin and his political friends to 
link the fortunes of that State with those of the Southern 
Confederacy. Their efforts were met by the occupation 
of the whole Southern portion of the commonwealth by 
Confederate troops. They formed a line across the State 
from the mountains to the Mississippi river at Columbus. 
These were all within the Department commanded by 
Albert Sidney Johnston, a veteran soldier about sixty years 
of age, who had deserted his flag. He was a Kentuckian, 
and his sympathies were with the conspirators against the 
life of the Republic. 

Under the shadow of Johnston's protection, and 
behind the cordon of Confederate troops stretched across 
the State, the disloyal politicians of Kentucky proceeded 
to organize an independent government for the common- 
wealth. They met at Russellville, the capital of Logan 
county, in the Southern part of the State, on the 29th of 
October. They drew up a manifesto, in which the griev- 
ances of Kentucky were recounted, and the' action of its 
Legislature denounced. They then called upon the people 
of the State to choose, " in any manner " they might see 
fit, " delegates to attend a ' Sovereignty convention,' " at 
Iiussellville, on the 18th of November. At the appointed 
time, about two hundred men from fifty-one counties, not 
elected by the people, assembled, and with difficult 
gravity adopted a " Declaration of Independence," and 
an " Ordinance of Secession," (November 20), 1861, and 
then proceeded to organize a " Provisional Government," 



18G THE niOGRAPUY OF 

bv choosing a (Governor, George W. Johnston, a legis- 
lative council of ten, a treasurer, and an auditor. 

Bowling Green was selected ae the new capital of 
the " sovereign " State of Kentucky. Commissioners 
were appointed to treat with the " Confederate Govern- 
ment," for the admission of Kentucky into the league; 
and before the close of December the arrangement was 
made, and so-called representatives of that great common- 
wealth were chosen by the k " Legislative Council," Decem- 
ber 1*!, L861, to seats in the "Congress" at Rich- 
mond. The people had nothing to do with the matter, 
and the ridiculous farce did not end here. All through 
the war, disloyal Kentuckians pretended to represent 
their noble old State in the supreme council of the con- 
spirators, where they were chosen only, a great portion of 
that time, by the few Kentuckians in the military service 
of Jefferson Davis. 

While these political events in Kentucky were in prog- 
ress, military movements in that quarter were assuming 
very important features. General Johnston concentrated 
troops at Bowling Green, and General Hardee was called 
from Southeastern Missouri, to supersede General Bnckner 
in command there. The force- under General Polk at 
Columbus were strengthened; and Zollicoffer, having 
secured the important position of Cumberland Gap, pro- 
ceeded 1" occupy the rich mineral and agricultural dis- 
tricts around the upper waters of the Cumberland River. 
II, issued a proclamation, December L6, to the people of 
Southeastern Kentucky, declaring, in the set phrases used 
l,v all the instruments of the conspirators, when about to 
plant the heel of military despotism upon a community, 
that he came as their " liberator from the Lincoln despol 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 1«7 

ism"audthe ravages of "Northern hordes," who were 
" attempting tlic subjugation of a sister Southern State/' 

Meanwhile General Buell had organized a large force 
at Louisville, with which he was enabled to strengthen 
various advanced posts, and throw forward, along the line 
of the railway toward Bowling Green, about forty thou 
sand men, under General Alexander McD. McCook. As 
this strong body advanced, the vanguard of the Confeder- 
ate.-, under General Jlindman (late member of Congress 
from Arkansas), fell back to the southern bank of the 
Green River, at Mumfordsville, where that stream was 
spanned by one of the most costly iron, bridges in the 
country. This was partially destroyed, in order to impede 
the march of their pursuers. The latter soon constructed 
a temporary one and proceeded to attack the Confederates 
Though greatly outnumbered by the Confederates, and 
attacked chiefly by cavalry and artillery, the Ideationals re- 
pulsed their assailants. Seeing reinforcements for the 
Nationals advancing, the Confederates withdrew to 
Bowling Green. The Nationals engaged in this affair 
Were Willich's German Regiment (Thirty-Second Indiana), 
which formed McCook's vanguard. 

In the meantime, stirring scenes were in progress in 
the extreme eastern part of Kentucky, and movements 
there caused a brief diversion of a part of Buell's army 
from the business of pushing on in the direction of Ten- 
nessee, with a view to driving the Confederates across the 
Cumberland into that State. Humphrey Marshall was in 
the field in the Valley of the Big Sandy river, with a 
considerable force, and it was against this body of Con- 
federates that Colonel Garfield was directed to proceed 
and drive them out of the State. 



188 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Garfield pushed forward (December 31), and by the 
night of January 7, L862, encamped within three miles of 
Painteville, in Johnston county. Kentucky, on the main 
branch of the Big Sandy river that forms the boundary 
between Virginia and Kentucky. His force consisted of 
the Forty-Second Ohio and Fourteenth Kentucky regi- 
ments, and three hundred of the Second Virginia cavalry. 
[lis errand thither was to drive Marshall out of Kentucky. 
On the morning of January 8, five companies of the 
Forty-Second Ohio, under the command of its Lieutenant- 
"1 Colonel, Lionel A. Sheldon, took possession of the village 
of Paiutsville. 

On the evening of the 8th, Colonel Garfield took 
the Forty-Second and two companies of the Fourteenth 
Kentucky, and marched against Marshall, who occupied a 
fortified position about three miles south of Paiutsville. 
Bis infantry reached the works at nine o'clock in the 
evening and found them deserted. The Confederates 
had fled, carrying away or destroying everything valuable. 
On hearing of the approach of Garfield, Marshall, in 
alarm, had lied up the river toward Prestonville. 

At about noon on the 9th, Colonel Garfield, with 
eleven hundred infantry from the Forty Second. Ohio and 
other regiments, and about six hundred cavalry, started in 
pursuii of Marshall, and about nine o'clock in the even- 
ing the advance was fired upon by Marshall's pickets, on 
the summit of Abbott's Hill. Garfield took possession of 

the hill, bivouacked for the night, and the next morning 
continued the pursuit, overtaking the enemy at the forks 
of Middle < 'reek, three miles southwest of Prestonburg. 
Marshall's force consisted of about three thousand live 
hundred men, infantry and cavalry, with three pieces of 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 189 

artillery strongly posted on a hill. Major Pardee, with 
four hundred men, was sent across Middle Creek to attack 
Marshall directly in front, and Lieutenant-Colonel Monroe 
(Twenty-Second Kentucky) was directed to attack on Mar- 
shall's right Hank. The light at once opened with con- 
siderable spirit, and Pardee and Monroe became hotly 
engaged with a force four times as large as their own. 
They held their ground with great obstinacy and bravery 
until reinforcements reached the field, when the enemy 
commenced to fall back. The National forces slept upon 
their arms, and at early dawn a reconnoissance disclosed 
the fact, that Marshall had burned his stores and had 
again fled, leaving a portion of his dead on the field. 

The National loss in the battle of Middle Creek, or ^ 
Prestonburg, was two killed and twenty-rive wounded ; 
that of the Confederates was estimated at sixty killed 
and about one hundred wounded or made prisoners. The 
ponderous Marshall was not heard of afterwards as a 
leader of troops. Garfield, in his report of the battle, 
said that twenty-seven dead insurgents were found on the 
field the next morning. The Confederate newspapers at 
Richmond reported the battle as a success for the insur- 
gents, in which they lost only nine killed and the same 
number wounded, while the loss of the Nationals was 
" from four hundred to five hundred killed, and about the 
same number wounded ! " Such was the usual character 
of the reports in the Confederate newspapers, under the 
eye of the Government at Richmond. With such men- 
dacity these newspapers made the deceived people believe 
that in every battle the Confederates won a victory over 
vastly superior numbers, killing, wounding, and capturing 
the Nationals by hundreds and thousands. These false 



190 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

reports were made for the purpose of enticing men into 
the army, or money from the purses of the people. 

"The battle of Middle Creek,'' says Captain Mason, 
" trifling though it may be considered in comparison with 
later contests, was the first substantial victory won for 
the Union cause. At Big Bethel, in Missouri, and at 
various points at which the Union and Confederate forces 
bad come in contact, the latter had been uniformly vic- 
torious. The people of the North, giving freely of their 
men and their substance in response to each successive call 
of the Government, had long and anxiously watched and 
waited for a little gleam of victory to show that Northern 
valor was a match for Southern impetuosity in the held. 
They had waited in vain since the disaster at Bull Run, 
during the previous summer, and hope had almost yielded 
to despair. The story of Garfield's success at Middle 
(reek came, therefore, like a benediction to the Union 
cause. Though won at a trilling cost, it was decisive so 
far as concerned the purposes of that immediate campaign. 
Marshall's force was driven from Kentucky, and made no 
further attempt to occupy the Sandy Valley. The im- 
portant victories at Mill Spring, Forts Donaldson and 
Eenry, and the repulse at Shiloh, followed. The victory 
at Mill Creek proved the first wave of a returning tide." 

Speaking of the engagement after lie had gained 
more experience in tin- war, Garfield said: "It was a 
\<-r\ rash and imprudent affair on my part. If 1 had 
been an officer of more experience, I should not have 
made the attack. A- it was, having gone into the army 
with the notion that lighting was our business, I didn't 
know iny better." 

The task winch l'.ucll imposed upon Colonel Garfield, 
an officer without military experience, fresh from the 
halls of learning and of legislation, and then }u>\ thirty 



JAME8 J. GARFIELD. 101 

years of age, when lie instructed him to drive Marshal] 
out of Eastern Kentucky, was rast, indeed, considering 
the area to he swept and the sniallness of the broom put 
into his hands. 

The area of his operations was larger than that of 
Massachusetts ; inhabited by about one hundred thousand 
poor and ignorant white men and a few thousand 
negroes. Marshall was acting more as a politician than 
as a soldier. His scattered but effective operations were 
part of a general plan to wrest Kentucky from the 
Union. To Garfield was assigned the formidable task of 
defeating a project that would have been well-nigh fatal 
to the Union cause, had it succeeded. To accomplish it 
he had only four light regiments of infantry and 600 cav- 
alry — in all about 2500 men — divided by large stretches of 
mountain country that was harried by guerillas and full 
of disloyal people. He had to send communications to 
his scattered forces, to insure a co-operative movement, 
and then run the risk of being defeated in detail before 
his troops could be massed ; and, after all that was safely 
accomplished, he had to attack twice his own force, 
strongly intrenched in commanding positions.* 

It was of the first importance for Colonel Garfield to 
have a trustworthy man to carry despatches between 
headcpiarters and his scattered forces. The Colonel asked 
the commander of the Fourteenth Kentucky regiment 
(Colonel Moore) to name such a man. He recommended 
John Jordan, a somewhat noted character in that region, 
a descendant of a Scotchman belonging to a family of 
men who had died in the defense of some honor or trust. 
Jordan was also a born actor, a man of unflinching cour- 

* Bundy's Life of Garfidd, p. 56. 



192 THE JiWGliAPJir OF 

age, of greal expedients and devoted to his country, which 
embraced the whole Union. He was sent for and soon 
appeared in Colonel Garfield's tent. The Colonel was at 
once favorably impressed with his appearance. 

John was tall and gaunt, of sallow complexion, about 
thirty years of age. His eyes were grey and keen, his 
voice a falsetto, pitched on a minor key, and his face 
was expressive of cunning, faith, courage and simplicity. 
Garfield sounded him thoroughly, for the fate of the cam- 
paign might depend upon his fidelity. He trusted Jordan, 
and was not disappointed. He sent him immediately 
with a despatch to Colonel Cranor at Paris, Kentucky. 
It was an order to move his command (the Fortieth Ohio), 
eight hundred strong, immediately to Prestonburg, and 
to transmit an order to Lieutenant-Colonel Woolford, at 
Stamford, to join him with three hundred cavalry. The 
keen-witted courier rode a hundred miles and returned, 
having executed his mission faithfully. It was his first 
scout in the service of Colonel Garfield, but not his last. 
The stories told of Jordan's adventures, expedients and 
hair-breadth escapes from perils by land ami water, and 
prowling guerillas, afford materials for a stirring romance. 

Having cleared Eastern Kentucky of Marshall's invad- 
ing forces, which had been plundering and distressing the 
inhabitants, Garfield moved his command to Piketou, 
one hundred and twenty miles above the mouth of the 
Big Sandy river, from which place he sent out little 
expeditions in every direction, breaking up forming or 
organized Rebel camps. Before leaving Prestonburg for 

Piketon, and on the day after the battle of Middle ( 'reek, 

dressed hi-- little army as follows: 



JAMES A. &AEFIELD. [98 

"Soldiers of the Eighteenth Brigade, — I am 
proud of you all ! In four weeks you have inarched, some 
eighty and some a hundred miles', over alinosl iinpasSable 
roads. One night in four you have slept, often in the 
storm, with only a wintry sky above your heads. You 
have marched in the face of a foe of more than double 
your number — led on by chiefs who have won a national 
renown under the Old Flag — intrenched in hills of his own 
choosing, and strengthened by all the appliances of mili- 
tary art. With no experience but the consciousness of 
your own manhood, you have driven him from his strong- 
holds, pursued his inglorious flight, and compelled him 
to meet you in battle. When forced to fight, he sought 
the shelter of rocks and hills. Ton drove him from his 
position, leaving scores of his bloody dead unburied. His 
artillery thundered against you, but you compelled him to 
flee by the light of his burning stores, and to leave 'even 
the banner of his rebellion behind him. I greet, you as 
brave men. Our common country will not forget you. 
She will not forget the sacred dead who fell beside you. 
nor those of your comrades who Avon scars of honor on 
the field. 

M I have recalled you from the pursuit that you may 
regain vigor for still greater exertions. Let no one tar- 
nish his well-earned honor by any act-unworthy an Amer- 
can soldier. Remember your duties as American citizens, 
and sacredly respect the rights and property of those 
with whom you may come in contact. Let it not be said 
that good men dread the approach of an American army. 

" Officers and soldiers, your duty has been nobly done. 
For this I thank you." 

"The effect of this victory on the government and the 
nation can, at this distance of time, scarcely be esti- 
mated," says Mr. Kirk. " Disaster had followed disaster, 
till the nation seemed paralyzed ; but this victory awoke 
it to life and resolute action. As a singular coincidence, 
it may be mentioned that on this very day President Lin- 
coln, in great depression, had sent for General McDowell 



104 Til!' BIO&RAP3? >>/■' 

to confer with aim as to the crisis— the capital beleag- 
uered, and our armies everywhere idle or defeated ; and at 
this very hour, when Garfield and his officers met after 
the battle, this conference took place hot ween 'the Presi- 
ded and General McDowell. I" quote the account of the 
interview from an extract from the General's diary, pub- 
lished hy Mr. Swim on in his ' History of the Army of the 
Potomac :' 

•• 'January lOfh, 1802. — At dinner at Arlington, Vir- 
ginia. Received a note from the Assistant Secretary of 
War, saving the President wished to see me that evening 
at eight o'clock, if I could safely leave my post. Soon 
after I received a note from Quartermaster-General Meigs, 
marked 'private and confidential,' saying the President 
wished to see me. 

"'Repaired to the President's house at eight o'clock 
P.M. Found the President alone. Was taken into the 
small room in the north-cast corner. Soon after we were 
joined by Brigadier-General Franklin, the Secretary of 
State. Governor Seward, the Secretary of the Treasury, 
and the Assistant Secret ary <<l' War. The President was 
greatly disturbed at the state of affairs. Spoke of the ex- 
hausted condition of the treasury : of the loss of public 
credit ; of the delicate condition of our foreign relations; 
of the had news he had received from the West, particu- 
larly as contained in a letter from General llalleck on the 
state of affairs in Missouri : of the want of co-operation 
between Generals llalleck ami Buell ; but more than all, 
the Bickness of I reneral Mc( Hellan. 

•••The Presidenl said he was in great distress, and 
had sen! Eor General Franklin and myself to obtain our 
opinion as to the possibility of soon commencing active 
operations with the Army of the Potomac. To use his 
own expression, 'If something was not soon done, the 
bottom would be out of the whole affair ; and if General 

McClellan did not want to 086 the ami), he would like to 

borrowit, provided he could Bee how it could he made to 

do ,-oniet hill-' ; * " 



JAMES .1. nAHriKl.ll 106 

General Buell, who was parsimonious in his bestowal 
of praises or compliments, issued the following congratu- 
lary order .on the receipt of the news of Garfield's victory : 

" Headquarters Department of the Ohio, 
Louisville, Ky., January 20th, 1862. 

•• General Orders, No. 40. 

-'The general commanding takes occasion to thank 
General Garfield and his troops for their successful cam- 
paign against the rebel force under General Marshall, on 
the Big Sandy, and their gallant conduct in battle. They 
have overcome formidable difficulties in the character of 
country, condition of the roads, and the inclemency of 
the season; and, without artillery, have in several engage- 
ments, terminating in the battle of Middle Creek, on the 
10th inst., driven the enemy from his intrenched position, 
and forced him back into the mountains, with a loss of a 
large amount of baggage and stores, and many of his men 
killed or captured. 

'•'These services have called into action the highest 
qualities of a soldier — fortitude, perseverance and 
courage. 

"By order, Don Carlos Buell, 

" Major-General Commanding." 

The authorities at Washington, impressed with a sense 
of Garfield's merits as a military commander, had given 
him a commission as Brigadier-General of Volunteers, 
dating- it January 10, 1862. As he had been the youngest 
man in the Ohio State Senate for two years before, so, 
now, he was the youngest General in the army. 

In the poor and wretched country around Pikcton, 
Garfield's supplies gave out, and, as was usual with him, 
taking personal care of the most important matters, he 
hastened to the Ohio river, obtained supplies, seized a 



i'.'i; THE BIOGRAPET OF 

boat, loaded ii and started on Lis return. There 
was an unprecedented freshet. Navigation was perilous. 
No captain or pilot could be induced to take charge of 
the Vessel. Availing himself of his canal experience of 
four months, he took charge of the boat; stood at the 
belai forty out of forty-eight hours, piloted the steamer 
through an untried channel full of dangerous eddies and 
wild currents, and saved his command from starvation. 
So his experience on a canal in his boyhood served him in 
a time of peril in after years. 

( >n his return with the supplies, Garfield determined to 
attempt the quieting the fears of the people, who had 
become greatly alarmed by the precipitate retreat of 
Marshall. His discomfited troops, themselves impelled 
in their, flight by terror, had spread the most extravagant 
stories of the strength and character of the Union forces, 
and the simplje Inhabitants of the country looked for the 
immediate infliction of great evils upon them. Colonel 
Garfield Issued the following address to them : 

"Citizens o] Sandy Valley: I have come among 
you to restore the honor of tne Onion, and to bring baefc 
the old banned* which you once loved, but which, by the 
machinations of evil men, and by mutual misunderstand- 
ing, lias been dishonored among you. To those who are 
In arms against the Federal Government I offer onrj the 
alternate of battle or unconditional surrender. Bui to 
v. ho have taken no pan In this war. who are In no 
way aiding or abi tting the enemies of this Union, even to 
lie.- • who hold sentiments averse to the Union, but will 
give no aid or comforl to its enemit — 1 offer the full pro : 
lection of the Government, both in their persons and 
property. 

•• Lei i hose w ho have been seduced away from the love 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 199 

of their country to follow after and aid the destroyers of 
our peace lay down their arms, return to their homes, bear 
true allegiance to the Federal Government, and they shall 
also enjoy like protection. The army of the Union wages 
no war of plunder, but comes to bring back the prosperity 
of peace. Let all peace-loving citizens who have fled from 
their homes return and resume again the pursuits of peace 
and industry. If citizens have suffered any outrages by 
the soldiers under my command, I invite them to make 
known their complaints to me, and their wrongs shall be 
redressed, and the offenders punished. I expect the 
friends of the Union in this valley to banish from among 
them all private feuds, and let a liberal love of country 
direct their conduct toward those who have been so sadly 
estrayed and misguided, hoping that these days of turbu- 
lence may soon be ended and the days of the Kepublic 
soon return. 

"J. A. GrARFIELD, 

" Colonel Commanding Brigade." 

The effect of this kindly and assuring address was 
salutary. The alarmed people issued from their hiding- 
places and gathered in confidence around the Union 
camp, regarding the National soldiers rather as friends 
than enemies. 

At the middle of March, General Garfield accom- 
plished a successful expedition against a nest of ma- 
rauding insurgents at Pound Gap, a wild and irregular 
opening in the Cumberland Mountains, leading into Vir- 
ginia from Kentucky, about forty-five miles southwest of 
Piketon. Marshall had retired to this pass, which was 
easily made impregnable. It was a position from which 
armed plunderers might swoop down into Kentucky. He 
left about five hundred men to guard the gap. They 
were defended by breastworks and quartered in log huts. 



! 



200 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

No direct attack could have dislodged them. At the time 
in question the post at Pound Gap was garrisoned by 
about six hundred Confederate militia, under Major 
Thompson. 

Garfield resolved to attempt to gain possession of this 
stronghold in the mountains. He employed his faithful 
scout, John Jordan, to gain accurate information con- 
cerning the strength and position of the garrison, the 
roads leading directly to and in the rear of the gap, and 
the best route to take to menace them in front and at the 
same time reach the rear of their fortifications. This in- 
formation was soon supplied. Jordan informed Garfield 
that General Marshall had issued orders for " a grand 
muster of the rebel militia on the loth of March, in 
strength sufficient, it was expected, to enter Kentucky 
and drive the Union forces before them." 

Garfield determined to forestall this gathering and 
disperse the guerilla bands. He made a sudden and 
forced march, with two hundred and twenty of the For- 
tieth Ohio, under Colonel Cranor, two hundred of the 
Forty-second, under Major Pardee, one hundred and 
eighty of the Twenty-second Kentucky, under Major 
Cook, and one hundred cavalry under Major McLaugh- 
lin — in all six hundred men. The roads were heavy with 
deep mod, and it was two days before he reached the foot 
of the gap. It was night when they halted for rest. 

Garfield desired to surprise the Confederate camp that 
night, but no man could ho found who would venture to 
pilot the expedition up the mountain in the gloom. The 
troops bivouacked for the night, their leader determining 
to scale the heights in the morning, guide or no guide. 

At dawn the snow was falling so thickly that objects 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 10\ 

only a few rods distant were scarcely visible. At nine 
o'clock Garlield made a feint with cavalry to deceive the 
Confederates with a belief that he was about to make a 
direct attack upon them, and to draw them out of their 
intrenchments. Then he set his infantry in motion. The 
ascent was long and toilsome, but they reached the sum- 
mit at last, where they paused for rest, two and a half 
miles from the Confederate garrison. Soon again in 
motion, they stealthily moved toward the enemy's post. 
Garfield led the way in a most fatiguing march of three 
hours. 

" We are within half a mile of their position," said 
Garfield to a subaltern standing near him, as they looked 
across a hollow in the mountain. " Yonder is their out- 
side picket ; but the way is clear ; if we press on at the 
double quick we have them." 

The little army had been piloted to this spot by a 
faithful guide, a mountaineer, seventy years of age. The 
picket had discovered the advancing column, and, firing 
his gun, he set out at the top of his speed for the in- 
trenchments. When within sight of the camp, a line 
was thrown down along the eastern slope of the mountain, 
and, pressing rapidly forward, was formed along the deep 
gorge through which the high-road passes. Up to this 
time the Confederates had been skirmishing with the 
cavalry in front of their breastworks; but now they 
gathered on the hill directly opposite the advanced posi- 
tion of the Union infantry. 

To try the range, Garfield sent a volley across the 
gorge, and, as the smoke cleared away, he saw the un- 
formed line melt like mist into the opposite forest. The 
enemy's position being now understood, the men of the 



202 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Fortieth and Forty-Second Ohio were ordered to the al- 
ready formed left wing, and then along the line rang the 
words, "Press forward; scale the hill, and carry it with 
the bayonet ! " 

A ringing shout was the only answer, and then the 
long column swept down the ridge, across the ravine, 
through the Confederate camp, and up the opposite moun- 
tain. The enemy fell gradually back among the trees, 
but when the Union bayonets clambered the hill, they 
broke and ran in the wildest confusion. The Ohio men 
followed, firing as they ran, and for a few moments the 
mountain echoed with the sharp, quick reports of five 
hundred rifles; but pursuit in the dense forest was impos- 
sible, and soon the recall was sounded. 

In a fight of less than twenty minutes the Confeder- 
ates were utterly routed, and their camp, consisting of 
sixty log-houses, capable of accommodating twelve hun- 
dred men, and all their stores, were in the hands of the 
attacking party. 

After spending the night in these comfortable quar- 
ters, General Garfield burnt the camp, and all the stores 
which he could not carry away, and returned to Piketon 
without the loss of a man, having marched ever ninety 
miles in the worst of winter weather, and, with a handful 
of men, carried an almost impregnable position, defended 
by superior numbers. Only seven of his men were 
wounded ; but this well-nigh bloodless victory rid East 
Kentucky of Confederate rule forever. 

This was the only independent command ever held by 
.lames A. < iai-tield ; but l>y it he showed himself possessed 
of qualities which would, on a wider field, have ranked 
liini among the great commanders of the Union, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 203 



CHAPTER IX. 

BATTLE OF SHILOH. BRAGG DRIVEN FROM TENNESSEE. 

On his return to Piketon from Pound Gap, General 
Garfield received orders to report to General Buell in 
person, with a greater part of his command, leaving a 
sufficient force to hold the Big Sandy region. Before 
the Pound Gap expedition he and General Rosecrans, the 
latter commanding in Western Virginia, had corresponded 
on the subject of the destruction of the East Tennessee 
and Virginia railway, then the only direct line of com- 
munication between the Gulf States and Richmond. 
They agreed upon the following plans, and recommended 
it to the War Department : 

General Rosecrans was to send a force up New River, 
in West Virginia, to cut the railroad near Newbern, 
while General Garfield was to pass through Pound Gap, 
and cut it at Abingdon, Virginia, and destroy the salt- 
works at that place. The two great Confederate armies 
of the East and the West were at that time fully occupied, 
and the destruction could have been made very complete. 
But toward the end of March orders were issued creating 
the Mountain Department for General Fremont ; Rose- 
crans was relieved, and Garfield was ordered to join 
General Buell. 

On his arrival at Louisville, General Garfield found 
that the Army of the Ohio was moving Southward to 



204 THE BIO QUA PET OF 

join General Grant's forces at Pittsburg Landing, on the 
Tennessee River, and was already beyond Nashville. At 
Louisville he received an order to join Buell at Nashville. 
He pushed on, overtook his commanding General thirty 
miles below Columbia, and was there assigned to the 
command of the Twentieth Brigade, then a part of the 
Sixth Division (commanded by General T. J. "Wood), of 
the Army of the Ohio. 

For the purpose of executing a grand scheme for 
driving armed Confederates out of the Valley of the 
Mississippi, an effort was made, in the Spring of 1862, to 
seize Corinth, in Northern Mississippi, situated at 
the intersection of the Charleston and Memphis, and 
Mobile and Ohio railways. For the accomplishment of 
this design a large force had been placed under the 
command of General U. S. Grant, then fresh from his 
great victory at Fort Donelson. Grant had taken post 
at Pittsburg Landing, on the left bank of the Tennessee 
river, about twenty miles from Corinth, at the beginning 
of April, and General Buell was ordered to join him 
there. The possession of Corinth would give the National 
forces control of the great railway communications 
between the Mississippi river and the East, and the 
border Slave-labor States on the Gulf of Mexico. 

At that time General Beauregard was in command at 
Corinth. (uncial Sidney Johnston, when pressed by 
BaelTs Army back into Tennessee, perceiving the evi- 
dent design of Grant's movement, hastened across the 
country in a Southwesterly direction and joined the 
Confederate forces at Corinth with his whole army. To 
that point also came Confederate troops from beyond the 
Mississippi ; and at the beginning of April, 1862, they 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 205 

numbered there about forty-five thousand men. General 
Johnson, the senior in rank, was in chief command. 

At this time the greater portion of General Sherman's 
division was lying just behind Shiloh Meeting-House, not 
far from Pittsburg Landing, General Prentiss's division 
was encamped across the direct road to Corinth, and 
General McClernand's was behind his right. These 
three divisions formed the advanced line. In the rear of 
this, between it and the Landing, lay General Hurlbut's 
division, and that of General Smith under General W. 
H. L. Wallace. Stuart's brigade of Sherman's division, 
lay on the Hamburg road, near its crossing of Lick's 
Creek, on the extreme left. General Lew Wallace's 
division was at Crump's Landing, a few miles below. 

Such was the disposition of Grant's army on Sunday 
morning, April 6, 1862, when it was suddenly attacked, 
with great fury — really surprised — by the Confederates, 
who had crept stealthily up from Corinth during a dark 
and stormy night, and announced their presence by the 
thunders of their cannons and the screaming of their 
shells. A desperate battle ensued, which continued all 
flay. The Confederate leader, General Johnston, was 
slain by a piece of a bursting shell, and General Beaure- 
gard, his second in command, became the chief leader. 

The Confederates, superior in numbers, continually 
pressed the Nationals back toward the river, and when 
night fell the day was fairly lost to the Union troops. 
The Confederates occupied all their camps but one, and 
the Union army could not fall back any further unless' 
they plunged into the Tennessee River. Beauregard per- 
ceived this, and, sure of a great triumph, and ignorant of 
the near presence of reinforcements for the Nationals, he 
sent to Richmond the following telegraphic despatch : — 



206 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

" Battle-field of Shiloh, April 6, 1862 : We have this 
morning attacked the enemy in a strong position in front 
of Pittsburg, and after a severe battle of ten hours, thanks 
to Almighty God, gained a complete victory, driving the 
enemy from every position. The loss on both sides is 
heavy, including our commander-in-chief, General Albert 
Sidney Johnston, who fell gallantly leading his troops 
into the thickest of the fight." 

Buell's army had reached Savannah, below Pittsburg 
Landing, on the day before the battle. Towards evening 
on Sunday, its vanguard, composed of General Nelson's 
division, arrived opposite the Landing. All that night 
Buell's troops were arriving by land and water to rein- 
force the imperilled National army ; and, at intervals of 
ten or fifteen minutes, two gun-boats were hurling a 
heavy shell into the camps of the Confederates, wearying 
and worrying them with unceasing alarm. By these they 
were compelled to fall back from their position, from 
which they intended to spring upon the Nationals during 
the night, and they lost more than half the ground which 
they had gained by the falling back of the Unionists on 
Sunday afternoon. 

Early the next morning (April 7), in the midst of a 
drizzling rain, the battle was renewed, and raged fearfully 
for many hours. To the Ohio troops was given a position 
on the left of the National forces. Only the divisions of 
Nelson and Crittenden of Buell's army were well in 
hand at dawn. As fast as the others came up they went 
into action, and fought gallantly wherever they were 
required to meet the foe, driving them here and there. 

Garfield's brigade first got into action at a little past 
noon. He reached the front at about one o'clock, and led 
his troops in a charge soon afterwards. The Ohio troops 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 207 

had been fighting all the morning, showing the value of 
the discipline to which Buell had subjected them, for he 
was an admirable martinet. At no time during the day 
did the Ohio Army lose its cohesion. At times batteries 
were lost, but were always retaken, when the line pressed 
onwards, gaining ground inch by inch. 

McCook's division had been fighting the Confederate 
centre, pushing it back, step by step, until it was driven 
from its position. It was in front of this division that 
the Confederates, commanded by Beauregard in person, 
assisted by Bragg, Polk and Breckinridge, made their last 
decided stand in the woods beyond Sherman's old camp, 
near ShUoh Meeting-House. Two of General "Wood's 
brigades (one of them Garfield's) came up just before the 
Confederate lines gave way. They dashed upon the wav- 
ering columns in a gallant charge and sealed the doom of 
the Confederates. This charge, in which Garfield led his 
troops in the thickest of the fight, relieved the wearied 
men of the Army of the Ohio, who had borne the brunt 
of the battle for hours, and changed the fortunes of the 
day. 

General Lew Wallace's troops, who had entered the 
woods, now pressed steadily forward, while " step by 
step, from tree to tree, position to position," said that 
officer in a letter to the author of this volume, ' " the 
rebel lines went back, never stopping again — infantry, 
horses and artillery — all went back. The firing was grand 
and terrific. Before us was the Crescent regiment of 
Xew Orleans ; shelling us on the right was the Washing- 
ton artillery, of Manassas renown, whose last stand was in 
front of Colonel Whittlesey's command. To and fro, 
now in my front, then in Sherman's, rode General Beau- 



208 TIIE BIOGRAPHY OF 

regard, inciting his troops, and fighting for his fading 
prestige of invincibility. The desperation of the struggle 
may be easily imagined. While this was in progress, far 
along the lines to the left the contest was raging with 
equal obstinacy. As indicated by the sounds, however, 
the enemy seemed retiring everywhere. Cheer after 
cheer rang through the woods, and each man felt the day 
was ours." 

Heavily pressed, the Confederates gave way, and 
flying through the National camps of Sunday morning, 
they burned their own, and with a powerful rear guard, 
under Breckinridge (ex-Vice-President of the United 
States), they hurried, in a cold, drizzling rain, which soon 
changed to hail, with their sick and wounded, in every 
conceivable conveyance, to the heights of Monterey, that 
nijrht, far on the road towards Corinth. That retreat must 
have been a terrible experience for the sick and wounded. 
An eye-witness of it wrote : 

" Here was a long line of wagons loaded with wounded, 
piled in like bags of grain, groaning and cursing, while 
the mules plunged on in mud and water, belly deep, the 
water sometimes coming into the wagons. Next came a 
straggling regimenl of infantry, pressing' on past the train 
of wagons ; then a stretcher borne upon the shoulders of 
four men, carrying a wounded officer ; then soldiers stag- 
gering along, with an arm broken and hanging down, or 
other fearful wounds which were enough to destroy life. 
1 passed long wagonJ;rains, filled with wounded 
ami dying Boldiers, without even a blanket to shield them 
from the driving sleel and hail, which fell in stones as 
large ae partridge -eggs, until it lay on the ground two 
inches deep*. Some three hundred men died during that 
awful retreat, and their bodies were thrown out to make 
room for others, who, although wounded, had struggled 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 209 

on through the storm, hoping to find shelter, rest, and 
medical care." 

One of General Garfield's staff related the following 
incident, which occurred in camp just after the battle of 
Shiloh, which showed the effects of his anti-slavery edu- 
cation and his boldness in asserting his convictions upon 
the subject of slavery : 

"One day," says the officer, "I noticed a fugitive 
slave come rushing into camp with a bloody head, and 
greatly frightened. He hud only passed my tent a mo- 
ment when a regular bully of a fellow came riding up, 
and with a volley of oaths began to ask after his 'nigger.' 
General Garfield was not present, and he passed on to the 
division commander. This division commander was a 
sympathizer with the theory that fugitives should be re- 
turned to their masters, and that Union soldiers should 
be made the instruments for returning them. He accord- 
ingly wrote a mandatory order to General Garfield, in 
whose command the negro was supposed to be hiding, tell- 
ing him to hunt out and deliver over the property of the 
outraged citizen. I stated the case as fully as I could to 
General Garfield before handing him the order, but did 
not color my statement in any way. He took the order, 
and deliberately wrote on it the following indorsement : 

" ' I respectfully, but positively, decline to allow my 
command to search for, or deliver up, any fugitive slaves. 
I conceive that they are here for quite another purpose. 
The command is open, and no obstacles will be placed in 
the way of the search/ 

" I read the endorsement, and was alarmed. I ex- 
pected that, if it was returned, the result would be that, 
the General would be court-martialed. I told him my 
fears. He simply replied, * The matter may as well be 
tested first as last. Right is right, and I do not propose 
to mince matters at all. My soldiers are here for far 



210 THE BIOGRAPHT OF 

other purposes than hunting and returning fugitive slaves. 
My people, on the Western Reserve of Ohio, did not send 
my boys and myself down here to do that kind of business, 
and they will back me up in my action.' He would not 
alter the endorsement, and the order was returned. Noth- 
ing ever came of the matter further." 

Beauregard's army had been terribly smitten and de- 
moralized, and he had sent an imploring cry to Richmond 
for immediate help. The way seemed wide open for his 
immediate destruction, and Grant andBuell were eager to 
enter it, but General Halleck, the commander of both, 
counseled against pursuit. For about three weeks the 
combined armies of the Tennessee and Ohio, not far from 
seventy -five thousand strong, rested among the graves of the 
loyal and the disloyal (who fought with equal gallantry) 
on the field of Shiloh, while Beauregard, encouraged by 
this inaction, was calling to his standard large re-enforce- 
ments, and was casting up around the important post of 
Corinth a line of fortifications not less than fifteen miles 
in extent. 

Halleck came from St. Louis and joined the National 
army. He was a dead weight upon its movements. He did 
not begin regular siege operations before Corinth until the 
20th of May. Meanwhile, some military operations were 
going on in the vicinity. When he was ready to make a 
grand assault on Corinth on the morning of May 29th, 
Beauregard was gone, with all his troops, and whatever 
he could send away. The possession of Corinth was now 
an easy matter to win. It gave great advantage to the 
National cause. 

In all the military operations between Shiloh and Cor- 
inth, and in the vicinity of the latter, General Garfield's 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 213 

brigade took ail active part. When Buell turned east- 
ward, after the fall of Corinth, and sought to prepare for 
a new aggressive campaign, lie assigned to General Gar- 
field the duty of rebuilding the bridges and reopening 
the Charleston and Memphis railway from Corinth to 
Decatur. 

Garfield made his headquarters at Hunts ville, Ala- 
bama, one of the most healthful regions south of the Ten- 
nessee River, but there was sufficient malaria in the atmos- 
phere there to reawaken the elements of fever and ague 
which he had taken into his system during his four months' 
duty on a canal tow-path in his early youth. He re- 
turned home on sick leave at the beginning of August. 

While on his way homeward, General Garfield was 
overtaken by an order from the Secretary of War (Stan- 
ton, who had a very high opinion of him not only as a 
military commander, but as a wise and judicious man) 
to repair to Cumberland Gap and succeed General George 
W. Morgan in command there. Garfield was too ill to 
comply. On reaching home, he was confined to his bed 
for some time. In obedience to further orders from the 
Secretary, he reported to him in person at Washington, 
late in September, when he was assigned, soon afterward, 
a place as a member of a Court of Inquiry to investigate 
charges against General McDowell. 

On the 8th of November General Garfield was ordered 
to report for duty to General Hunter, to take part in a 
projected expedition to South Carolina. As the second 
of these orders superseded the first, so a third soon super- 
seded the second. On November 25 (1862) he was detailed 
as a member of the General Court-Martial for the trial 
of General Fitz-John Porter, and he served during all its 



214 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

sessions. General Hunter was President of that court, 
and he became bo deeply impressed with the rare excel- 
lence of Grarfield's character in every phase, that he 
greatly desired he might yet be his coadjutor or on duty 
with him in the South. But that appointment was re- 
voked early in January, 18G3, and he was ordered (January 
14) to join General AW S. Ilosecrans, then in command of 
the Army of the Cumberland. 

General Kosecrans had just achieved a splendid victory 
at Murfreesborough and his army yet occupied that battle- 
field. When Garfield presented himself at headquarters 
he was rather coldly received. Ilosecrans had conceived 
a prejudice against him because of his well-known radical 
anti-slavery views^ for tHe hero of Murfreesborough was 
rather pro-slavery in feeling. He regarded Garfield as a 
mischievous "political preacher," and did not desire such 
a character on his staff or under his command. 

A few days of frank intercourse with General Garfield 
revealed to Ilosecrans the absurdity of his apprehensions. 
He had kept him at headquarters to study his character, 
and the more he studied the better he liked him. Ilose- 
crans soon perceived the prodigiousness of his resources 
and admired his manliness and frankness ; and he offer- 
ed him his choice, confirmation as chief of staff, or 
the command of a brigade. Garfield chose the former, 
and was Immediately installed " Chief of Staff " in the 
full meaning of that word in the armies of Europe, and 
took the place of the accomplished Colonel Gancsche v 
whose head had been shot ofi while riding by the side of 
hie < General in the late battle. 

This appointment gave general satisfaction, not only 
to tin- Army of the Cumberland, but to all military circles 



JA3TKR A. GARFIELD. 215 

and the country at large. Edmund Kirke has drawn the 
following picture of General Garfield at the time when 
he entered upon his duties as Chief of General Kosecrans' 
Staff: 

"In a corner by the window, seated at a small pine 
desk — a sort of packing-box, perched on a long-legged 
stool, and divided into pigeon-holes, with a turn-down lid 
— was a tall, deep-chested, sinewy-built man, with regular, 
massive features, a full, clear blue eye, slightly tinged 
with gray, and a high, broad forehead, rising into a ridge 
over the eyes, as if it had been thrown up by a plow. 
There was something singularly engaging in his open, ex- 
pressive face, and his whole appearance indicated, as the 
phrase goes, 'great reserve power.' His uniform, though 
cleanly brushed and sitting easily upon him, had a sort 
of democratic air, and everything about him seemed to 
denote that he was 'a man of the people.' A rusty 
slouched hat, large enough to have fitted Daniel Webster, 
lay on the desk before him ; but a glance at that was not 
needed to convince me that his head held more than the 
common share of brains. Though he is yet young — not 
thirty-three — the reader has heard of him, and if he 
lives he will make his name long remembered in our 
history." 

The Army of the Cumberland was compelled by abso- 
lute necessity to remain at Murfreesborough, until near 
the close of June, 1863. During that time, Garfield's 
labors in his new position were prodigious and important, 
and before he left the service in September following, he 
wielded more influence over his commander than any 
other officer in the Army of the Cumberland. Eosecrans 
afterwards said : 

" "We were together until the Chattanooga affair. I 



216 TEE BIOGRAPHY OF 

found him to be a competent and efficient officer, an ear- 
nest and devoted patriot, and a man of the highest honor. 
His views were large, and he was possessed of a thoroughly 
comprehensive mind." 

Early in the spring, General Garfield directed Captain 
D. <i. Swaim, his adjutant, to organize a Bureau of Mili- 
tary Information. By a system of police and secret 
reports, very full and trustworthy information was ob- 
tained of the organization, strength and position of the 
Confederate forces. It was a most perfect machine, and 
its help to the commanding General in the formation and 
execution of his plans, was of the greatest interest and 
importance. 

It was at this time that General Rosecrans engaged in 
disputes with the War Department, which finally led, 
remotely, perhaps, to his removal from his command of 
the Army of the Cumberland. lie was a man of bril- 
liant mind, a brave and accomplished soldier and a good 
strategist ; but, unfortunately, he was extremely sensitive, 
absorbed in details, possessed considerable asperity of tem- 
per, and had a peculiar faculty of involving himself in 
difficulties with the military authorities at Washington, 
by imprudent language in his communications. 

General II. W. Ilalleck was then the General-in-Chief 
of the armies of the Republic His incompetency had 
snatched the palm of victory from the Nationals at 
Corinth, which had produced much irritation in the 
armies of the West engaged in that campaign. His 
orders and other communications to Rosecrans were not 
always judicious in subject or expression, and operated, 
like electric sparks, in producing an explosion of irrita- 
bility on the part of the commander of the Army of the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 217 

Cumberland. The following ■will illustrate this point. 
Halleck had made the proposal indicated below, when 
Rosecrans, with a nice sense of honor, but incautious in 
words, responded as follows from Murfreesborough, on 
March 18, 1863 :— 

" General : — Yours of the first instant, announcing the 
offer of a vacant major-generalship in the regular army, 
to the general in the field who first wins an important 
and decisive victory, is at hand. As an officer and citizen, 
I feel degraded at such an auctioneering of honors. Have 
we a General who would fight for his own personal benefit, 
when he would not for honor and his country ? He would 
come by his commission basely in that case, and deserve 
to be despised by men of honor. But are all the brave 
and honorable Generals on an equality as to chances ? 
If not, it is unjust to those who probably deserve most. 
"W. S. Roseceans, Major-General. 
" To Major-General H. W. Halleck, 
General-in-Chief. " 

General Garfield equally resented the dishonorable 
proposition and applauded the spirit of the rebuke ; yet 
he labored hard and with some success to secure and 
preserve a better understanding between the authorities 
and his commanding General. He clearly perceived de- 
fects in the organization of the army and the incom- 
petency of at least two of its corps commanders, but could 
effect nothing in the way of reform in that direction. 

While the army was lying in comparative idleness all 
the Winter and Spring of 1863 at Murfreesborough, the 
President and Secretary of War frequently urged Rose- 
crans to move. General Garfield, who probably knew 
more than any man about the real condition of his own 
army, as well as that of the Confederate forces under 



218 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Bragg, also urged him to move. Rosecrans said he 
was not ready, and that a forward movement wouJd be 
hazardous. 

Most of his Generals agreed with Rosecrans, and when 
he finally asked each one of them to give his views in 
writing, not one of the seventeen general officers con- 
curred with General Garfield. But this overwhelming 
negative did not alter his opinions, but stimulated him to 
prepare a documentary argument in favor of them. 

The information which Garfield derived from Swaim's 
Bureau satisfied him that the time for striking a great 
blow was at hand. He took the letters of the seventeen 
Generals, collated them, summarized their substance, 
supplemented the whole by an argument in support of 
his opinion, in the form of a most remarkable report, and 
carried it to his General. The following is the report : 

•• I11.AD0.UARTERS Department of the Cumberland, 
Miirfnesboro, June 12, 18G3. 

" General : — In your confidential letter of the 8th in- 
stant to the corps and division commanders and generals 
of cavalry of this arm v. there were substantially five 
questions propounded for their consideration and answer, 
viz. : — 

"1. Has the enemy in our front been materially 
weakened by detachments to Johnston, or elsewhere ? 

'* 2. ('an this army advance 011 him at this time with 
strong, reasonable chances of lighting a great and success- 
ful battle ? 

•• '■>. I »<> you think an advance of our army at present 
likely to prevent additional re-enforcements being sent 
againsl General Grant by the enemy in our front? 

■• I. Do you think an ipnmediate advance of this army 
advisable? 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 219 

" 5. Do you think an early advance advisable? 

" Many of the answers to these questions are not cate- 
gorical, and cannot bo clearly sot down either as affirmative 
or negative. Especially in answer to the first question 
there is much indefiniteness, resulting from the difference 
of juJ^nent as to how great a detachment could be con- 
sidered a ' material reduction ' of Bragg's strength. For 
example : one officer thinks it has been reduced ten thou- 
sand, but not ' materially weakened.' 

" The answers to the second question are modified in 
some instances by the opinion that the rebels will fall back 
behind the Tennessee river, and thus no battle can be 
fought, either successful or unsuccessful. / 

" So far as these opinions can be stated in tabular 
form, they will stand thus : 

Yes. No. 

Answer to first question 6 11 

Answer to second question 2 11 

Answer to third question 4 10 

Answer to fourth question 15 

Answer to fifth question 2 

" On the fifth question, three give it as their opinion 
that this army ought to advance as soon as Vicksburg 
falls, should that event happen. 

"The following is a summary of the reasons assigned 
why we should not, at this time, advance upon the 
enemy : 

" 1. With Hooker's army defeated, and Grant's bend- 
ing all its energies in a yet undecided struggle, it is bad 
policy to risk our only reserve army to the chances of a 
general engagement. A failure here would have most 
disastrous effects on our lines of communication, and on 
politics in the loyal States. 

"2. We should be compelled to fight the enemy on his 
own ground, or follow him in a fruitless stern chase ; or 
if we attempted to outflank him and turn his position, we 
should expose our line of communication, and run the 



220 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

risk of being pushed back into a rough country well-known 
to the enemy, and little to ourselves. 

"3. In case the enemy should fall back without ac- 
cepting battle, he could make our advance very slow, and 
with a comparatively small force posted in the gaps of the 
mountains, could hold us back while he crossed the Ten- 
nessee river, where he would be measurely secure, and 
free to send re-enforcements to Johnston. His forces in 
Kast Tennessee could seriously harass our left flank, and 
constantly disturb our communications. 

" 4. The withdrawal of Burnside's Ninth Army Corps 
deprive us of an important reserve and flank protection, 
thus increasing the difficulty of an advance. 

"5. General Hurlbut has sent the most of his forces 
away to General Grant, thus leaving "West Tennessee un- 
covered, and laying our right flank and rear open to raids 
of the enemy. 

" The following incidental opinions are expressed : — 

" 1. One officer thinks it probable that the enemy has 
been strengthened rather than weakened, and that he (the 
enemy) would have a reasonable prospect of victory in a 
general battle. 

" 2. One officer believes the result of a general battle 
would be doubtful, a victory barren, and a defeat most 
disastrous. 

" 3. Three officers believe that an advance would 
bring on a general engagement. Three others believe it 
would not. 

•• 4. Two officers express the opinion that the chances 
■ >f success in a general battle are nearly equal. 

" 5. One officer expresses the belief that our army has 
reached its maximum strength and efficiency, and that in- 
activity will seriously impair its effectiveness. 

" 6. Two officers say that an increase of our cavalry by 
about six thousand men would materially, change the 
aspect "f <>ur affairs, and give us a decided advantage. 

" In addition to the above summary, I have the honor 
to submit an estimate of the strength of Bragg's army, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 221 

gathered from all the data 1 have been able to obtain, in- 
cluding the estimate of the General commanding in his 
official report of the battle of Stone River, and facts 
gathered from prisoners, deserters, and refugees, and from 
rebel newspapers. After the battle, Bragg consolidated 
many of his decimated regiments and irregular organiza- 
tions, and at the time of his sending re-enforcements to 
Johnston, his army had reached its greatest effective 
strength. It consisted of five divisions of infantry, com- 
posed of ninety-four regiments and two independent 
battalions of sharp-shooters ; say ninety-five regiments. 
By a law of the Confederate Congress, regiments are con- 
solidated when their effective strength falls below two 
hundred and fifty men. Even the regiments formed by 
such consolidation (which may reasonably be regarded as 
the fullest) must fall below five hundred. I am satisfied 
that four hundred is a large estimate of the average 
strength. 

" The force then would be : 

Infantry, 95 Regiments, 400 each 38,000 

Cavalry, 35 " say 500 " 17,500 

Artillery, 26 Batteries, say 100 " 2,600 

Total 58,100 

" This force has been reduced by detachments to 
Johnston. It is as well known as we can ever expect to 
ascertain such facts, that three brigades have gone from 
McCown's division, and two or three from Breckinridge's, 
say two. It is clear that there are now but four infantry 
divisions in Bragg's army, the fourth being composed of 
fragments of McCown's and Breckinridge's divisions, and 
must be much smaller than the average. Deducting the 
five brigades, and supposing them composed of only four 
regiments each, which is below the general average, it 
gives an infantry reduction of twenty regiments, four 
hundred each ; eight thousand, leaving a remainder of 
thirty thousand. 

"It is clearly ascertained that at least two brigades of 



tot THE BIOGRAPHY OV 

cavalry have been sent from Van Dorn's command to Mis- 
sissippi, and it is asserted in the Chattanooga Rebel of 
June 1 1th, that General Morgan's command has been 
permanently detached and sent to Eastern Kentucky. It 
is not certainly known how large his division is, but it is 
known to contain at least two brigades. Taking this 
minimum as the fact, we have a cavalry reduction of four 
brigades. 

" Taking the lowest estimate, four regiments to the 
brigade, we have a reduction by detachment of sixteen 
regiments, five hundred each, leaving his present effective 
cavalry force nine thousand five hundred. 

" With the nine brigades of the two arms thus detached 
it will be safe to say there have gone — 

G Batteries, 80 men each 480 

Leaving him 20 Batteries 2,120 

Making a total reduction of 16,480 

Leaving of the three arms . 41,680 

" In this estimate of Bragg's present strength I have 
placed all doubts in his favor, and I have no question that 
my estimate is considerably beyond the truth. General 
Sheridan, who has taken great pains to collect evidence 
on this point, places it considerably below these figures. 
But assuming these to be correct, and granting what is 
-till more improbable, that Bragg would abandon all his 
rear poets, and entirely neglect his communications and 
could bring his last man into battle, I next ask, What 
have we with which to oppose him ? 

" The last official report of effective strength, now on 
file in the office of the assistant adjutant-general, is dated 
June 11, and shows that we have in this department, 
omitting all officers and enlisted men attached to depart- 
ment, corps, division, and brigade headquarters : — 

"I. Infantry — One hundred and seventy-three regi- 

< M battalions sharp-shooters ; four battalions pio- 

and one regiment engineers and mechanics, with a 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 223 

total effective strength of seventy thousand nine hundred 
and eighteen. 

" 2. Cavalry — Twenty-seven regiments and one un- 
attached company, eleven thousand eight hundred and 
thirteen. 

" 3. Artillery — Forty-seven and a half batteries field 
artillery, consisting of two hundred and ninety-two guns 
and five hundred and sixty-nine men, making a general 
total of eighty-seven thousand eight hundred. 

" Leaving out all commissioned officers, this army rep- 
resents eighty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty- 
seven bayonets and sabres. 

" This report does not include the Fifth Iowa Cav- 
alry, six hundred strong, lately armed ; nor the First 
Wisconsin Cavalry ; nor Coburn's brigade of infantry, 
now arriving ; nor the two thousand three hundred and 
ninety-four convalescents now on light duty in ' Fortress 
Kosecrans.' 

" There are detached from this force as follows : 

At Gallatin 969 

At Carthage 1,149 

At Fort Donelson 1.485 

At Clarksville 1,138 

At Nashville ~> •'-' « 

At Franklin 900 

At Lavergne 2,117 

Total 15,050 

" With these posts as (hey are, and leaving two thou- 
sand five hundred efficient men in addition to the two 
thousand three hundred and ninety-four convalescents to 
hold the works at this place, there will be left sixty-five 
thousand one hundred and thirty-seven bayonets and 
sabres to throw against Bragg's forty-one thousand six 
hundred and eighty. 

" I beg leave, also, to submit the following considera- 
tions : 



884 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

" 1. Bragg's army is now weaker than it has been 
since the battle of Stone River, or is likely to be again 
for the present, while our army has reached its maximum 
strength, and we have no right to expect re-enforcements 
for several months, if at all. 

"2. Whatever be the result at Vicksburg, the deter- 
mination of its fate will give large re-enforcements to 
Bragg. If Grant is successful, his army will require 
many weeks to recover from the shock and strain of his 
late campaign, while Johnston will send back to Bragg a 
force sufficient to insure the safety of Tennessee. If 
Grant fails, the same result will inevitably follow, so far 
as Bragg's army is concerned. 

"3. No man can predict with certainty the result of 
any battle, however great thedisparity in numbers. Such 
results are in the hand of God. But, viewing the question 
in the light of human calculation, I refuse to entertain a 
doubt that this army, which in January last defeated 
Bragg's superior numbers, cannot overwhelm his present 
greatly inferior forces. 

" 4. The most unfavorable course for us that Bragg 
could take would be to fall back without giving us battle, 
but this would be very disastrous to him. Besides the 
loss of male rial of war, and the abandonment of the rich 
and abundant harvest now nearly ripe in Central Tennes- 
see, he would lose heavily by desertion. It is well known 
thai a widespread dissatisfaction exists among his Ken- 
tueky and Tennessee troops. They are already deserting 
in large numbers. A retreat would greatly increase both 
the desire and the opportunity for desertion, and would 
very materially reduce his physical and moral strength. 
While it would lengthen our communications, it would 
give ufl possession of McMinnville, and enable us to 
threaten Chattanooga and Easl Tennessee ; and it would 
ii"i be unreasonable t" expect an early occupation of the 
former place. 

"5. Bui the chances are i *e than ever thai a sud- 
den and rapid movemenl would compel a general engage- 




g 

o 






O 

o 

B 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 23? 

ment, and the defeat of Bragg would be in the highest 
degree disastrous to the rebellion. 

" 6. The turbulent aspect of politics in the loyal States 
renders a decisive blow ;igainst the enemy at this time of 
the highest importance to the success of the Government 
at the polls, and in the enforcement of the Conscription 
Act. 

" 7. The Government and the War Department believe 
that this army ought to move upon the enemy. The army 
desires it, and the country is anxiously hoping for it. 

"8. Our true objective point is the rebel army, whose 
last reserves are substantially in the field, and an effective 
blow will crush the shell, and soon be followed by the 
collapse of the rebel Government. 

"9. We have, in my judgment, wisely delayed a gen- 
eral movement hitherto, till your army could be massed, 
and your cavalry could be mounted. Your mobile force 
can now be concentrated in twenty-four hours, and your 
cavalry, if not equal in numerical strength to that of the 
enemy, is greatly superior in efficiency and morale. 

"For these reasons I believe an immediate advance of 
ail our forces is advisable, and, under the providence of 
God, will be successful. 

"Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

[Signed] J. A. Gakfield, 

Brigadier- General, Chief of Staff. 
" Major-General Roseceans, 

Commanding Department Cumberland." 

This report was effective. It satisfied General Rose- 
crans that he was then competent to make an aggressive 
movement. It gave him information of which he was 
ignorant ; and orders were immediately issued for the 
Army to prepare to move forward. Twelve days after 
the reception of that report the initial step in the 
Campaign of Tullahoma was taken. 

This movement gave umbrage to some of the seven- 






228 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

teen Generals who had opposed an advance. On the 
morning when the Army moved, General Thomas L. 
Crittenden said to the Chief of Staff, " It is understood, 
Sir, by the general officers of the army, that this move- 
ment is your work. I wish you to understand that it is 
a rash and fatal move, for which you will be held 
responsible." 

The " rash and fatal move " was the Tullahoma Cam- 
paign, the complete success of which in the destruction of 
Bragg's army was prevented only by the delays which 
had too long postponed the movement, and the terrible 
season of rains which set in on the very morning of the 
advance, June 24, 1863. With a week's earlier start, 
Bragg and his ar,my would never have reached Chattanooga. 
As it was he was compelled to fly from Tennessee, and 
forced to give battle in Northern Georgia. "I had the 
satisfaction," said Garfield to a friend, " of having these 
Generals acknowledge, at the end of the campaign, that 
they were wrong and that I was right."- 

When Rosecrans reached Tullahoma, the old difficul- 
ties with the War Department were renewed. The 
General was unfortunate in showing irritability of temper 
in answering complaints of the War Department; and 
Gtarfield did his best to allay the ill-feeling which prom- 
ised to arise. With the general policy of the commanding 
General, he sympathized. Lndeed, it was his own policy ; 
and when, on August 5, General Ilalleck telegraphed a 
peremptory order for ttosecrans to move, Garfield 
persuaded his General not to reply, but endeavor to obey 
ion as possible. Rosecrans quietly waited till the 
dispositions along his extended line were completed ; till 
Btores were accumulated and the corn had ripened, so 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 229 

that his horses might be made to " live off the country." 
He was ready to move on the 15th of August. 

The army, in separate divisions, moved forward sim- 
ultaneously toward the Tennessee river in pursuit of 
Bragg, with the intention of crossing that stream at 
various points and capturing Chattanooga. From the 
Sequatchie Valley Crittenden sent two brigades of 
mounted men under Minty and Wilder, and two of in- 
fantry under Hazen and Wagner, over Walden's Ridge, 
to proceed to points on the Tennessee, near and above 
Chattanooga, to make a feigned attack. General Ilazen 
was in chief command of these four brigades in the Ten- 
nessee Valley, and was instructed to watch all the cross- 
ings of the river for seventy miles above Chattanooga, 
and to give Bragg the impression that the whole of Rose- 
crans' army was about to cross near that town. Hazen's 
command had four batteries of artillery. 

In the course of four or five days the mountain ranges 
were crossed, and the Army of the Cumberland, stretch- 
ing along the line of the Tennessee River for more than a 
hundred miles of its course, was preparing to cross that 
stream at different points, for the purpose of closing 
around Chattanooga, to crush or starve the Confederate 
army there. Pontoon-boat, raft and trestle bridges were 
constructed at Shellmound, the mouth of Battle Creek, 
Bridgeport, Caperton's Ferry, and Bellefonte. So early 
as the 20th (August, 1863), Hazen reconnoitered Harri- 
son's, above Chattanooga, and then took post at Poe's 
cross-roads, fifteen miles from the latter place ; and on 
the following day, Wilder's cannon thundering from the 
eminences opposite Chattanooga, and the voice of his 
shells screaming over the Confederate camp, startled 



280 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Bragg with a sense of imminent danger. At the same 
time Ilazeu was making " show marches," displaying camp 
fires at different points, and causing the fifteen regiments 
of his command to appear like the advance of an immense 
army. This menace was soon followed by information 
that Thomas and McCook were preparing to cross below, 
and that the remainder of Crittenden's corps was swarm- 
ing on the borders of the river, at the foot of Walden's 
Ridge, below Chattanooga. 

Having passed the first mountain ranges south of the 
Tennessee, without opposition, and being informed of the 
movements of the Confederates from East Tennessee to 
Chattanooga, Rosecrans determined to advance his right 
through the Lookout Mountain passes, and with his cav- 
alry on his extreme right, threaten Bragg's railway com- 
munications between Dalton and Resaca Bridge, while 
his left and centre should move through other passes upon 
the Confederate front. Anticipating this movement, 
when he discovered that the main National Army was 
below, Bragg abandoned Chattanooga, passed through the 
gaps of the Missionaries' Ridge, to the west of Chicka- 
mauga river, in Georgia, and posted his army along the 
highway from Lee and Gordon's Mill on that stream, 
south to the village of Lafayette. 

The fact of this retreat was revealed to General Crit- 
tenden, when, on the 9th (September, 1863), with the 
main body «»f his corps, which had crossed the Tennessee 
at and above Bridgeport, he made a reconnoissance on 
Lookout Mountain, and from its lofty summit, near Sum- 
mcrtown, looked down upon Chattanooga, where no tent 
or banner of the enemy might be seen, lie at once 
moved his corps around the point of Lookout Mountain, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 231 

to enter and take possession of the deserted village, and 
on the evening of the following day it encamped at Ross- 
ville, within five miles of Chattanooga. Thus, without a 
battle, the chief object of the grand movement of the 
Army of the Cumberland over the mountains was gained. 



382 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER X. 

BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA. END OF GARFIELD'S MILITARY 

CAREER. 

The Army of the Cumberland was now the centre of 
absorbing interest to the Government and to the loyal 
people. Bragg's was of like interest to the Confederates, 
and they spared no effort to give him strength sufficient 
to drive Rosecrans back toward the Cumberland or cap- 
ture his army. General Buckner, who was with a force 
in East Tennessee, was ordered to join Bragg. General 
Johnston sent him a strong brigade from Mississippi, un- 
der General Walker, and the thousands of prisoners pa- 
roled by Grant and Banks at Yicksburg and Port Hud- 
son, who were' falsely declared by the Confederate au- 
thorities to be exchanged, and were released from parole, 
were, in shameful violation of the terms of the surrender 
and the usages of civilized nations, sent to Bragg to swell 
his ranks, while every man that it was possible to draw 
from Georgia and Alabama by a merciless conscription 
was mustered into the service to guard bridges, depots, 
etc., so that every veteran might engage in battle. In 
this way Bragg was rapidly gathering a large force in 
front of Pigeon Mountain, near Lafayette, Georgia, while 
Longstreet was making his way up from Atlanta, to swell 
the volume of the Confederate army to full eighty thou- 
sand mill. Longstivet, whom Lee had sent into East Ten- 
nessee, finding General Burnside in his way, had passed 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 233 

down through the Carolinas, with his corps, to Augusta, 
Georgia, thence to Atlanta, and then up the railway 
toward Chattanooga. 

Deceived by Bragg's movements — uninformed of the 
fact that Lee had sent troops from Virginia to re-enforce 
him, impressed with the belief that he was retreating 
toward Rome, and ambitious of winning renown by cap- 
turing his foe, or driving him in confusion to the Gulf — 
Rosecrans, instead of concentrating his forces at Chatta- 
nooga, and achieving a great as well as an almost blood- 
less victory, scattered them over an immense space of 
rough country, to operate on the rear and flank of what 
he supposed to be a flying adversary. He ordered Crit- 
tenden to call his four brigades from across the river, near 
Chattanooga, and leaving one of them there to garrison 
the town, push on to the East Chickamauga Valley and the 
railway to Ringgold or Dalton, to intercept the march of 
Bnckner from East Tennessee, or strike the Confederate 
rear, as circumstauces might determine. 

General George H. Thomas, who had just passed 
through Stevens's and Cooper's gaps of Lookout Moun- 
tain into McLemore's Cove, was directed to push through 
Dug Gap of Pigeon Mountain, and fall upon the sup- 
posed flank of the Confederates at Lafayette. At the 
same time McCook was to press on farther south, to 
Broomtown Valley, to turn Bragg's left. These move- 
ments were promptly made, and revealed the alarming 
truth to Rosecrans. His cavalry on the right, supported 
by McCook's corps, descended Lookout Mountain, recon- 
noitered Broomtown Valley as far as Alpine, and dis- 
covered that Bragg had not retreated on Rome. Critten- 
den moved rapidly to Ringgold, where, on pushing 



384 TIIE BIO OR APE Y OF 

Wilder forward to Tunnel Hill, near Buzzard's Roost 
(where he .skirmished heavily), it was discovered that the 
Confederates, in strong force, were on his front and men- 
acing his communications; and when Negley, with his 
division of Thomas's corps, approached Dug Gap, he 
found it securely guarded by a force so overwhelming, 
that when, on the following morning, Baird came to his 
aid, both together could make no impression, and they 
fell back to the main body. 

Rosecrans was at last satisfied that Bragg, instead of 
fleeing before him, was gathering force at Lafayette, op- 
posite his centre, to strike a heavy blow at the scattered 
Army of the Cumberland. He saw, too, that its posi- 
tion was a perilous one. Its wings, one at Lee and 
Gordon's Mill, on the Chickamauga, and the other at 
Alpine, were full forty miles apart, and offered Bragg a 
rare opportunity to terribly cripple, if not destroy or 
capture, his foe. But the golden opportunity for the 
Confederates soon passed. 

Rosecrans, on perceiving the danger to his army, 
issued orders for the concentration of his forces in the 
Chickamauga Valley, in the vicinity of Crawfish Spring, 
about half way between Chattanooga and Lafayette. 
Crittenden, alarmed by threatened danger to his com- 
munications, had already made a rapid flank movement in 
that direction, from Ringgold, covered by Wilder's brig- 
ade, which was compelled to skirmish heavily on the way 
With Confederate cavalry, under Pegram and Armstrong. 
Thomas crossed the upper end of the Missionaries' Ridge, 
and moved toward the Spring; and McCook, after much 
difficulty in moving up and down Lookout Mountain, 
joined Thomas on the 17th. Granger's reserves were 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 235 

called up from Bridgeport, and encamped at Kossville ; 
a division under General Steedman was ordered up from 
the Nashville and Chattanooga Kailway, and a brigade, 
led by Colonel D. McCook, came from Columbia. 

On the night of Friday, the 18th (September, 1863), 
when it was positively known to Rosecrans that troops 
from Virginia were joining Bragg, the concentration of 
his army was completed, excepting the reserves at Koss- 
ville and cavalry at Blue Bird's Gap of Pigeon Mountain, 
and at Dougherty's Gap, that separates the latter from 
Lookout Mountain. The divisions of Wood, Tan Cleve, 
Palmer, Reynolds, Johnson, Baird, and Brannan, about 
thirty thousand in number, formed the first line, ranging 
from Lee and Gordon's Mill northward; and the re- 
mainder were posted on the right, in reserve. Minty and 
Wilder, with their mounted men, were on the extreme 
left, watching the crossings of the roads from Ringgold 
and Napier Gap, at Reed's and Alexander's bridge. 

Meanwhile, Bragg had been making dispositions for 
attacking Rosecrans's left. His scouts, looking down from 
Pigeon Mountain, had observed the exact position of the 
Army of the Cumberland, and the Confederate leader had 
the advantage of knowing the strong and weak points of 
his foe, while his own position was more than half con- 
cealed. Bragg concentrated his army on the eastern side 
of the Chickamauga, and, early on the morning of the 
18th, when the advance of Longstreet's corps, under 
Hood, was coming up, he massed his troops heavily on 
his right, attacked Minty and Wilder, who fought gal- 
lantly at the bridges, and pushed the National left back 
to the Lafayette and Rossville road. Early in the even- 
ing, Hood, with a division, took post on Bragg's extreme 



236 TEE BIOGRAPHY OF 

right. Bushrod Johnson's Virginians took a firm position 
on the west side of the ereek, and, before midnight, 
nearly two-thirds of the Confederates had crossed over, 
and held all the fords of the Chickamauga, from Lee and 
Gordon's Mill, far toward the Missionaries' Ridge. Such 
was the position of the contending armies when the battle 
of Chickamauga began on the morning of September 19, 
1863. 

Bragg had formed his army into two corps, the right 
commanded by General (Bishop) Polk, and the left by 
General Longstreet, Hood taking the place of the latter 
until the arrival of his chief. Arrangements were made 
for crossing the Chickamauga at different points simul- 
taneously, from Lee and Gordon's Mill northward, in heavy 
force, so as to fall with crushing weight on the National 
left, while the front should be hard pressed, and the 
passes of Pigeon Mountain well-guarded by "Wheeler's 
cavalry, to prevent a flank attack from that direction. But 
the wise movements of the Nationals, toward the next 
morning, disconcerted Bragg's well-laid plans, and instead 
of finding Bosecrans comparatively weak on his left, he 
found him positively strong. 

( reneral Bosecrans changed its position slightly to the 
rear, and contracted the extended lines of the previous 
day. Trains were moving northward on all the roads in 
the rear of Chattanooga, and the wounded were taken 
from the hospitals, which had become exposed by the 
concentration of the forces to the left. General Thomas 
still held the left, with the divisions of Generals Palmer 
and Johnston attached to his corps, and thrown in the 
cent i-.'. General Brannan was retired slightly, with his 
regiments arrayed in echelon. General Van Cleve was 



james A. Garfield. 237 

held in reserve ou the - west side of the first road in the 
rear of the line. Generals Wood, Davis, and Sheridan 
followed next, the last being on the extreme left. Gen- 
eral Lytle occupied an isolated position at Gordon's 
Mills. 

By a continuous night-march up the Dry Valley road 
General Thomas, with his heavy corps, followed by a 
part of McCook's troops, had reached an assigned position 
on a southern spur of Missionaries' Ridge, near Kel ley's 
Farm, on the Rossville and Lafayette road, facing the 
burnt bridges of Reed and Alexander ; and there, a mile 
or two to the left of Crittenden's corps, he proposed 
to strike early on the morning of the 19th (September) 
without waiting to be struck. 

General Thomas was informed by Colonel D. McCook, 
who, with his brigade of reserves, had been holding the 
front at that point during the night, that a Confederate 
brigade was on that side of the Chickamauga, apparently 
alone, and that as he (McCook) had destroyed Reed's 
bridge behind them, he thought they might easily be cap- 
tured. Thomas at once ordered General Brannan to 
advance with two brigades on the road to Reed's bridge, 
while Baird should throw forward the right of his divi- 
sion on the road to Alexander's bridge, and in that man- 
ner attempt to capture the isolated brigade. This brought 
on a battle. 

While Thomas's troops were making the prescribed 
movements, a portion of Palmer's division of Crittenden's 
corps came up and took post on Baird' s right ; and at 
about ten o'clock in the morning Croxton's brigade of 
Brannan's division became sharply engaged with Forrest's 
cavalry, which was strongly supported by the infantry bri- 



233 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

gades of Ector and Wilson, from "Walker's column. Back 
upon these Croxton had driven Forrest, when the latter was 
stoutly resisted. Then Thomas sent Baird's division to 
aid Croxton, and after a desperate struggle the Confeder- 
ates were hurled back with much slaughter. 

Walker now threw Liddle's division into the fight, 
making the odds much against the Nationals, when the 
latter were in turn driven ; and the pursuers, dashing 
through the lines of three regiments of regulars (Four- 
teenth, Sixteenth, and Eighteenth United States troops), 
captured two batteries and over five hundred prisoners. 
One of the batteries lost was Loomis's, of Michigan, 
which had done so much service from the beginning: of 
the war, that the very metal and wood were objects of 
affection. In the charge of the Confederates all its 
horses and most of its men were killed or wounded. Its 
commander, Lieutenant Van Pelt, refused to leave it, and 
he died by the side of his *guns, fighting a regiment of 
men with his single saber. 

At the critical moment when this charge was made, 
Johnson's division of McCook's corps, and Reynolds's, of 
Thomas's, came rapidly up, and were immediately thrown 
into the fight. So also was Palmer's division of Critten- 
den's corps, which took position on Baird's right. The 
Nationals now outnumbered and outflanked the Con fed- 
erates, attacked them furiously, and drove them back in 
great disordi r \'<>r a mile and a half on their reserves near 
the creek, and killing General Preston Smith. By this 
charge the lost battery was recovered, and Uranium and 
Baird were enabled to re-form their shattered columns. 
The position of the Confederates on the creek, between 
the two bridges already mentioned, was SO strong that it 




IE (PEOPLE I^EJlQlJia THE OFFICIAL BULLET1JI8 
£Y EQISOJIS ELECTBIQ LIGHT. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 241 

was not deemed prudent to assail it. Then there was a 
lull in the battle for an hour, during which Brannan and 
Baird took position on commanding ground between 
McDaniers house and Reid's bridge, with orders to hold 
it to the last extremity. It was now about four o'clock 
in the afternoon. 

At five o'clock the Confederates renewed the battle, 
by throwing the divisions of Liddle and Gist in heavy 
charges upon Reynolds's right, and while Thomas was try- 
ing to concentrate his forces, they fell with equal fury on 
Johnson, Baird, and Yan Cleve, producing some con- 
fusion, and threatening the destruction of that part of 
the line. Fortunately, Gen. Hazen had been sent back 
to the Rossville road to take charge of a park of artillery, 
composed of four batteries, containing twenty guns, which 
had been left there without guards. These Hazen quickly 
put into position on a ridge, with such infantry supports 
as he could hastily collect, and brought them to bear upon 
the Confederates, at short range, as they dashed into the 
road in pursuit of the flying Nationals. This caused 
them to recoil in disorder, and thereby the day was saved 
on the left. Just at sunset General Cleburne made a 
charge upon Johnson's front with a division of Hill's 
corps, and pressed up to the National lines, but secured 
no positive advantage. 

There had been some lively artillery work on the 
National right during the day, and in an attack by three 
of Bragg's brigades in succession, one of the National 
batteries (three guns) was for a time in possession of the 
foe. But the assailants were soon driven back, and the 
guns were recovered. At three o'clock in the afternoon 
Hood threw two of his divisions (his own and that of 



242 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Bushrdd Jolinson) upon Davis's division of McCook's 
corps, pushing it back and capturing the Eighth Indiana 
;v. Davis fought with great pertinacity until near 
sunset, when Bradley's brigade, of Sheridan's division, 
came to his aid. Then a successful counter-charge was 
made, the foe was driven back, the battery was retaken, 
and a number of prisoners were captured from the Con- 
federates. When night fell the battle ceased, with ap- 
parent advantage to the Nationals. They had lost no 
ground ; had repulsed the assailants at all points, and 
made a net gain of three guns. But they were clearly 
outnumbered. Nearly the whole army had been engaged 
in the struggles of the day, and no re-enforcements were 
near. The Confederates had not many fresh reserves; 
and that night Hindman came up with his division, and 
Longstreet arrived with two brigades of McLaws's vet- 
erans from Virginia. Longstreet took command of 
Bragg's left ; and on the morning of the 20th (Septem- 
ber, 1863), the Confederates had full seventy thousand 
men opposed to fifty-five thousand Nationals. 

Preparations were now made for a renewal of the 
struggle in the morning, which Rosecrans knew must be 
severe. After hearing the reports of his corps command- 
ers, he ordered General Negley, who had come down 
from the extreme right during the afternoon and fought 
his way to Van Clove's side, to report to General Thomas 
early in the morning. McCook was ordered to replace 
Negley's troops by one of his own divisions, and to close 
up well on Thomas, bo as to cover the position at the 
Widow Glenn's house, at which the latter now had his 
headquarters Crittenden was ordered to hold two of 
his divisions in reserve, ready to support McCook or 



JAMES A. GARFIELD, US 

Thomas, as circumstances might require. These orders 
were issued at an early hour, and the remainder of the 
night was spent in needed repose. 

Bragg had likewise made preparations for a vigorous 
attack at dawn. Longstreet arrived at eleven o'clock in 
the evening, and immediately received his instructions as 
commander of the left, where his own troops were 
stationed ; and Polk was ordered to assail the Nationals 
at daylight, and " to take up the attack in succession 
rapidly to the left. The left wing w T as to await the 
attack by the right, and take it up promptly when made, 
and the whole line was then to be pushed vigorously and 
persistently against the enemy throughout its extent." 

The battle was to have been opened at daylight by 
Hill, whose corps was to fall upon the National left. 
Before that hour Bragg was in the saddle, and he waited 
with great impatience for the sound of battle when day 
dawned, for he had heard the noise of axes and the 
falling of trees during the night, indicating that his 
adversary was intrenching. But Polk was silent, and 
when Bragg rode to the right, he found that the right 
reserve leader had not even prepared for the movement. 
Bragg now renewed his orders, but another golden oppor- 
tunity for him was lost. 

At the hour appointed for the attack, Thomas was 
comparatively weak, for Negley had not yet joined him, 
and Rosecrans, riding along his lines at dawn, had found 
his troops on his left not so concentrated as he wished. 
This defect was speedily remedied. Under cover of a 
dense fog that shrouded the whole country, reinforce- 
ments joined Thomas, until nearly one-half the Army of 



244 TEE BIOGRAPHY OF 

the Cumberland present was under his command, behind 
breastworks of logs, rails and earth. 

When the fog lifted, between eight and nine o'clock, 
September 20, Breckinridge, of Hill's corps, with fresh 
divisions, was found facing and partly overlapping 
Thomas's extreme left, held by Baird, and flanking it. 
Breckinridge instantly advanced, and, fighting desperately, 
pushed across the Rossville road toward a prescribed 
position. Other divisions in succession toward Bragg's 
centre followed this example, the intention being to carry 
out the original plan of interposing an overwhelming 
force between Rosecrans and Chattanooga, which Thomas 
had prevented the previous day. At this moment 
Beatty's brigade of Negley's division, moving from the 
National right centre, went into action by the side of 
Baird, on the extreme left, and checked Breckinridge's 
advance ; but both he and Baird were outnumbered, and 
the latter began to lose ground. Several regiments of 
Johnson's division were pushed forward to his support, 
and these, with Yandever's brigade of Brannan's division, 
and a part of Stanley's, of Wood's division, so strength- 
ened the wavering line, that Breckinridge was thrown 
back in much disorder, with the loss of Generals Helm 
and Deshler, killed, his chief of artillery (Major Graves) 
mortally wounded, and General D. Adams severely so. 
He rallied his troops on a commanding ridge, with his 
gnus well posted, and then fought desperately, re-enforced 
from time to time by the divisions of Walker, Cheatham, 
Cleburne, and Stewart. Fearfully the battle raged at 
that point, with varying fortunes for the combatants. 

The carnage on both sides was frightful, and for 
awhile it was douhtful with whom the palm of victory 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 245 

would be left. Thomas had given an order for the 
massing of cannon on the Missionaries' Ridge, just west 
of the State Road, as strongly supported by infantry as 
possible, to command Breckinridge's artillery, and sweep 
the ground to the left and rear of Baird, but it seems to 
have been misunderstood, and the work was not done. 
Yet the attempt to turn the National flank was not 
accomplished, for Thomas and his veterans stood like a 
wall in the way, and the assailants had much to do to 
maintain the battle nearer the centre, where the conflict 
was, for awhile, equally desperate, bloody and decisive. 

While the struggle was going on at the left and left 
centre, the right became involved in disaster. The divisions 
of Negley and Tan Cleve moved successively, after the 
battle had begun, to the support of Thomas. Wood was 
directed to close up to Reynolds on the right centre, and 
Davis to close on Wood. McCook, commanding on that 
wing, was ordered to close down on the left with all 
possible speed. These dangerous movements were now 
made disastrous by the blunder of an incompetent staff 
officer, who was sent with orders to Wood. The latter 
understanding that he was directed to support Reynolds, 
then hard pressed, pulled out of the line and passed to the 
rear of Brannan, who was en echelon, slightly in the rear 
of Reynolds's right. This left a gap, which Longstreet 
quickly saw, and before Davis, by McCook's order, could 
till it with three light brigades, he thrust Hood into it. 
The latter, with Stewart, charged furiously, with Buck- 
ner supporting him by a simultaneous advance on the 
National right. 

Hood's column now struck Davis on the right, and 
Brannan on the left, and Sheridan in the rear, severing 



246 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

the army by isolating five brigades, which lost full forty 
per cent, of their numbers. The whole right wing of 
the Nationals was so shattered by this charge, that it 
began crumbling, and was soon seen flying in disorder 
toward Rossville and Chattanooga, leaving thousands be- 
hind, killed, wounded, or prisoners. This turbulent and 
resistless tide carried along with it Rosecrans, Crittenden, 
McCook, and other commanders, while Sheridan and 
Davis, who were driven over to the Dry Valley road, 
rallying their shattered divisions, re-formed them by the 
way, and, with McCook, halted and changed front at 
Rossville, with a determination to defend the pass at all 
hazards against the pursuers. Rosecrans, unable to join 
Thomas, and believing the whole army would be speedily 
hurrying pell-mell toward Chattanooga, with exultant vic- 
tors in their rear, pushed into that place, to make pro- 
vision for holding it, if possible. 

Thomas, meanwhile, ignorant of the disaster that had 
befallen the right, was maintaining his position most gal- 
lantly, little suspecting, however, that he must soon 
confront a greater portion of Bragg's army. He had sent 
Captain Kellogg, at a little past noon, to hasten the march 
of Sheridan, whose support had been promised, and he 
had returned with tidings that a large Confederate force 
was approaching cautiously, with skirmishers thrown out, 
to the rear of Reynolds's position. Thomas sent General 
JIaikcr, whose brigade was on a ridge in the direction of 
this reported advance, to resist them, which he did. In 
the meantime, General Wood came up, and was directed 
to post his troops on the left of Brannan, then in the rear 
of Thomas's line of battle on a slope of the Missionaries' 
Ridge, a little west of the Rossville road, where Captain 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 247 

Gaw, by Thomas's order,,, had massed all the artillery he 
could find in reserve, and brought as many infantry to its 
support as possible. To that position Thomas now with- 
drew from his breastworks and concentrated his command. 

Wood had barely time to dispose his troops on the left 
of Brannan, before they were furiously attacked, the 
Confederates keeping up the assault by throwing in fresh 
troops as fast as those in their front were repulsed. 
Meanwhile, General Gordon Granger, who, at Rossville, 
with a reserve force, had heard the roar of guns where 
Thomas was posted, had moved to his support, without 
orders, and appeared on his left flank at the head of Steed- 
man's division of his corps. He was directed to push on 
and take position on Brannan's right, when Steed man gal- 
lantly fought his way to the crest of the hill at the ap- 
pointed place, and then, turning his artillery upon the 
assailants, drove them down the southern slope' of the 
ridge with great slaughter. 

The Confederates soon returned to the attack, with a 
determination to drive the Nationals from the ridge. 
They were in overwhelming force, and pressed Thomas 
in front and on both flanks. Finally, when they were 
moving along a ridge and in a gorge, to assail his right 
in flank and rear, Granger formed the brigades of Whit- 
taker and Mitchell into a charging party, and hurled 
them against the Confederates, of whom General Hind- 
man was the commander, in the gorge. They were led by 
Steedman, who, seizing a regimental flag, headed the 
charge. Victory followed. In the space of twenty 
minutes Hindman and his Confederates disappeared, and 
the Nationals held both ridge and gorge. The latter had 
lost heavily. Steedman's horse was killed, and he was 



248 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

badly bruised by a fall, and Whittaker was stunned by 
a bullet and fell from his horse. 

There was now a lull of half an hour. It was the deep 
calm before the bursting of the tempest. A greater por- 
tion of the Confederate army was swarming around the 
foot of the ridge, on which stood Thomas with the rem- 
nant of seven divisions of the Army of the Cumberland. 
Longstreet was then in immediate command of his own 
veterans, for Hood had lost a leg during the morning ; 
and to human vision there seemed no ray of hope for the 
Nationals. But Thomas stood like a rock, and assault 
after assault was repulsed, until the sun went down, when, 
by order of General Rosecrans, sent by General Garfield, 
his chief of staff (who reached the ridge at four o'clock), 
he commenced the withdrawal of his troops to Rossville. 
His ammunition was nearly exhausted. His men had not 
more than three rounds apiece when Steedman arrived, 
and furnished them with a small supply. This was con- 
sumed in the succeeding struggle. 

General Garfield and a company officer arrived at the 
headquarters of Thomas, and gave him the first trust- 
worthy information concerning the disaster to the centre 
and right of the army. They bore an order from Rose- 
crans to take command of all the forces, and, with Mc- 
Cook and Crittenden, to secure a strong position in Ross- 
ville and assume a threatening attitude. This was done 
by 'li visions, in succession, Reynolds's leading, and the 
whole covered by Wood's division. On the way Tur- 
chin's brigade charged upon a heavy body of Confed- 
erates, who were seeking to obstruct the movement. 
They were driven, with a loss of two hundred men, mad« 
prison 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 249 

So ended the Battle of Ciiiokamauga. There was 
no pursuit. The Nationals quietly took position in the 
Kossville and Dry Yalley gaps of the Missionaries' Ridge 
on the 20th. On the following morning a reconnoitering 
force of Confederates on the Ringgold road drove in 
Minty's cavalry, but did little harm. That evening the 
whole army withdrew in perfect order to a position as- 
signed it by Rosecrans, in front of Chattanooga, and, on 
the following day, Bragg advanced and took possession of 
Lookout Mountain and the whole of the Missionaries' 
Ridge. 

The Confederates won a victory on the field in the 
Battle of Chickamauga at a fearful cost to both armies, 
and without any other decisive result. Rosecrans might 
have held Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, and the Mis- 
sionaries' Ridge, with his communications secure, without 
that fearful cost ; while Bragg, although he had reaped 
" glory," as the phrase is, on the battle-field, secured none 
of the harvest of solid victory, such as the capture or 
dispersion of the army of his adversary. " Rosecrans," 
said a Confederate historian, " still held the prize of Chat- 
tanooga, and with it the possession of East Tennessee. 
Two-thirds of our nitre-beds were in that region, and a 
large proportion of the coal which supplied our foun- 
dries. It abounded in the necessaries of life. It was 
one of the strongest countries in the world, so full of 
lofty mountains that it had been called, not unaptly, the 
Switzerland of America. As the possession of Switzer- 
land opened the door to the invasion of Italy, Germany, 
and France, so the possession of East Tennessee gave 
easy access to Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and 
Alabama." 



250 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

The troops engaged in this struggle were commanded 
by the following officers: 

National Troops. — Fourteenth Corps — General Thom- 
as, four divisions, commanded by Generals Baird, Negley, 
Brannan, and Reynolds. Twentieth Corps — General 
McCook, three divisions, commanded by Generals Davis, 
Johnston, and Sheridan. Twenty-first Corps — Three di- 
visions, commanded by Generals Wood, Palmer and Van 
Cleve. Reserved Corps — General Granger, two divisions, 
commanded by Generals Steedman and Morgan. The 
division of General R. S. Granger, of this corps, and 
two brigades of Morgan's division were not present. 
Cavalry Corps — General Stanley, two divisions, com- 
manded by Colonel E. M. McCook and General George 
Crooke. General Stanley being too sick to take the field, 
General R B. Mitchell commanded the cavalry in the 
battle of Chickamauga. 

Confederate Troops. — General J. Longstreet's corps, 
three divisions, commanded by Generals J. B. Hood, E. 
M. McLaws, and B. R Johnson. General L. Polk's 
corps, three divisions, commanded by Generals B. F. 
Cheatham, T. C. Hindniau, and P. Anderson. General 
l». 11. Hill's corps, two divisions, commanded by Gener- 
al- Patrick Cleburne (called the " Stonewall Jackson of 
the Southwest") and J. C. Breckinridge. General S. B. 
Buckner's corps, two divisions, commanded by Generals A. 
P. Stewarl and W. Preston. General W. II. T. Walker's 
cups, two divisions, commanded by Generals J. 11. Liddcll 
and S. R. Gist. General J. Wheeler's cavalry corps, two 
divisions, commanded by Generals S. A. Wharton and 
W. Martin. General N. B. Forrest's corps, two divisions, 
commanded by Generals F. Armstrong and J. Pegram. 



JAMES A. QARFIELT). 251 

The National loss was reported at 16,326, of whom 
1,687 were killed, 9,384 were wounded, and 5,255 were 
missing. The total loss of officers was 974. It is proba- 
ble the entire Union loss was full 19,000. Among the 
killed were General W. H. Lytle, of Ohio, Colonels Bald- 
win and Heg, commanding brigades, and Colonels E. A. 
King, Alexander, and Gilmer. The Confederate loss, ac- 
cording to a compilation made from the reports of 
Bragg's commanders, was 20,950, of whom 2,673 were 
killed, 16,274 were wounded, and 2,003 were missing. 
Rosecrans reported that he brought off the field 2,003 
prisoners, 36 guns, 20 caissons, and 8450 small-arms, and 
that he lost in prisoners, including 2,500 of his wounded 
left on the field, 7,500. Bragg claimed to have captured 
over 8,000 prisoners, including the wounded, 51 guns, 
and 15,000 small-arms. The Confederates left a large 
number of the Union dead unburied. 

It is now agreed by military critics that the Nationals 
lost the honor and advantage of a great victory for their 
arms in the Battle of Chickamauga in consequence of a 
hastily-written order to General Wood, commanding the 
right wing. General Garfield wrote every order of his chief 
on that sanguinary battle-field excepting this one, not from 
dictation usually, but rather from the suggestions of his 
own judgment, afterward submitting what he had prepared 
to Rosecrans for approval or change. The fatal order was 
written by Rosecrans himself. The meaning of the order 
was correct, but the phraseology was so obscure that the 
division commander so interpreted it that obedience 
caused the destruction of the right wing of the arm v. 

It is probable that to Garfield's quick perceptions and 






208 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

unflinching bravery was due the salvation of the National 
army from utter ruin in that battle. When Wood, mis- 
interpreting the obscure order, opened the g;ip which al- 
lowed the Confederates to give the blow that broke apart 
the right and centre of the National line, and swept the 
commander-in-chief, the chief of staff, and a great mass of 
demoralized troops in a wild current toward Chattanooga, 
Garfield felt sure that Thomas, commanding the centre, 
was holding his own with his usual stubbornness. He 
implored Rosecrans to let him seek that centre and make 
that a rallying point from which to prevent utter rout by 
skillful and persistent lighting. 

Rosecrans cheerfully gave Garfield permission to go 
to Thomas. The brave young General, with a few order- 
lies and a company officer, set out on the perilous journey 
through tangled woods, over hills, across morasses, and 
ignorant as to where the Confederate picket lines might 
be. His brain was full of the latest events of the battle 
and terming with plans for the remaining work to be 
done. It has been well said, "His arrival at the head- 
quarters of Thomas was equal to a reinforcement by a 
corps." lie gave Thomas incalculable aid by his full 
knowledge of what had already occurred on the field. 
Hie intelligent advice and his a^^ressive enthusiasm well 
supplemented that of tin- brave Thomas, who, because of 
his impregnability won the name of "The Rock of 
Chickamauga.' 1 Garfield also won, on the same day, the 
commission of a Major-General <>!' Volunteers. 

The National Army tell hack to Chattanooga, where 
General Garfield performed Important service in its 
re-organization and preparation for further operations, 
ami in ihe defen.-e of the post againsf the Confederates. 



JAMES A. CAUFlF.l.D. 2M 

Having done this, lie was sent to Washing-ton to attempt 
to reconcile the differences between liosecrans and the 
Secretary of War (Stanton). There he first learned that 
he had been promoted to the rank and pay of a Major- 
General. 

General Garfield regarded with supreme repugnance 
the class of politicians who constituted the " Peace Party" 
of the radical stamp of Vallandigham, and who secretly 
gave " aid and comfort to the enemy " called " Copper- 
heads." In a letter to his friend Hinsdale, written at 
head-quarters at Murfreesborough on May 26, 1803, he 
wrote : 

"Tell all those copperhead students for me that, were 
I there in charge of the school, I would not only dishon- 
orably dismiss them from the school, but, if they re- 
mained in the place and persisted in their cowardly trea- 
son, I would apply to General Burnside to enforce General 
Order No. 38 in their cases. . . . 

" If those young traitors are in earnest they should go 
to the Southern Confederacy, where they can receive full 
sympathy. Tell them all that I will furnish them jiasses 
through our lines, where they can join Vallandigham and 
their other friends, till such time as they can destroy us 
and come back home as conquerors of their own people, 
or can learn wisdom and obedience. 

"I know this apparently is a small matter, but it is 
only apparently small. We do not know what the devel- 
opments of a month may bring forth, and, if such things 
be permitted at Hiram, they may anywhere. The Rebels 
catch up all such facts as sweet morsels of comfort, and 
every such influence lengthens the Avar and adds to the 
bloodshed." 

Before Garfield entered the military service, it had 

been determined among the leading Republicans of the 
10 



Till: BlOQRAPH) 

: v.- that he should be their representative 
in the next Congress. Elis districtwas the Ashtabula, 
presented by that Btannch anti-slavery champion, 
J R Giddings. Garfield's military genius was then 

undeveloped : but bis brilliant qualities as a statesman 
Ltd ahone forth in the Ohio State Senate. When he 
proved himself equally brilliant in the military service, it 
was difficult tor his friends to determine whether he 
would be most useful in the forum or in the field. tie 
was nominated for Congress without his knowledge, while 
in the military service. He accepted the nomination, be- 
lieving the war would soon be over, and in October, 1802, 
he was elected by an immense majority. 

After the battle of Chickamauga, and lie had risen to 
the rank of Major-General, the question whether he 
should remain in the service or enter Congress, presented 
itself for his serious consideration. lie was a poor man, 
ami the pay of a Major-General was much greater than 
that of a member of Congress. His Government and the 
War Department regarded him as one of the most useful 
men in the army, and a grand held of honorable service 
lay before him. Bu1 could he justly refuse to till the 
equally honorable place in the councils of the nation, to 
which his constituents had called him and he had power 
to serve theml Besides, would the war continue much 
lb- yielded hi- preference to a sense of duty, 
and on December 5, l s ''>o. he reluctantly resigned his com- 

"ii in the army, and took his -eat in the National 

ire. 

It Lb related that General Rosecrans spoke as follows 

General Garfield, in connection with his 

taking hip Real in Congress, in discussing his ^nomination 






JAMES A. GARFIELD. 257 

for the office of President of the United States in 
1880: 

" Garfield was a member of my military family during 
the early part of the war. When he came to my head- 
quarters, I must confess I had a prejudice against him, 
as I understood he was a preacher who had gone into 
politics, and a man of that cast I was naturally opposed 
to. The more I saw of him the better I liked him, and 
finally I gave him his choice of a brigade, or to become 
my Chief of Staff. He chose the latter. His views were 
large, and he was possessed of a thoroughly comprehen- 
sive mind. Late in the Summer of 1863 he came to me 
one day, and said that he had been asked to accept the 
Kepublican nomination for Congress from the Ashtabula 
(O.) district, and asked my advice as to whether he ought 
to accept it, and whether he could do so honorably. J 
replied that I not only thought he could accept it with 
honor, hut that I deemed it to be his duty to do so. ' The 
war is not yet over,' I sdd, ' nor will it be for some time 
to come. There will be many questions arising in Con- 
gress which require not alone statesmanlike treatment, 
but the advice of men having an acquaintance with mili- 
tary affairs will be needful ; and for that and several other 
reasons, you would, I believe, do equally as good service 
to this country in Congress as in the field.' I consider 
Garfield head and shoulders above any of the men named 
before the convention, and far superior to any of the poli- 
tical managers upon the floor." 



THE BI0Q&AP.H1? OF 



CHAPTER XI. 

i.AKFIELD IN CONGRESS. THE PEACE PARTY. 

Tin; (\>M"ressioiial District which General Garfield 
represented, comprised the counties of, Ashtabula, Lake, 
Geauga, Portage and Trumbull. It had a voting popula- 
tion of about twenty-five thousand, and was known as the 
Ashtal >ula District. It was probably the most enlightened 
district of the Union in proportion to its size. It had 
been settled almost wholly by New England people. They 
brought with them those grand institutions of the East, 
the Common School and the Free School, and absolute 
illiteracy was rare. 

The inhabitants possessed the best traits of their New 
England ancestors, with some of the bigotry and narrow- 
di se of the old Puritans. The antidote to these defects 
was the Common School. The school-house was seen at 
almost any cross-road ; and there were few places where 
intoxicating liquors might be bought. The people were 
temperate, thrifty, religions in the best sense of the term, 
Ereedom-loving, and God-loving — in a word, it was a most 
exemplary community. 

Before General Garfield was called to represent that 
district in Congress, the people of that region, and indeed 

of the whole I'nioii. had been served by a most remark- 
able man, Joshua Reed Giddings, a native of Athens, 
Pennsylvania, where he was born in the autumn of 1705. 
In his infancy his parents went to Canandaigua, X. Y., 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 259 

and when he was ten years of age they emigrated to 
Ashtabula county, Ohio. They were among the first 
settlers on the Western Reserve. At the age of seventeen 
years Joshua entered the military service in the second 
war for independence, or the war of 1812. 

Young Giddings was one of an expedition sent to the 
peninsula north of Sandusky Bay, where, in two fierce 
battles with a superior force of Indians, nearly one-fourth 
of its number were killed or wounded. At the close of 
his term of enlistment he began school-teaching in a little 
log school-house, and at the age of twenty-two commenced 
the study of law. This study he pursued three years, 
and in 1820 he was admitted to the bar, at the age of 
twenty-five years. 

Mr. Giddings began his public career in 1826, when 
he was chosen to represent his Assembly district in the 
Legislature of Ohio. In 1838, when he was forty-three 
years of age, he was elected to Congress. He was a free- 
dom-loving and just man. He was already known as an 
" abolitionist," or advocate of the abolition of slavery, a 
term of reproach, at that time, among a majority of the 
people of the Union. Mr. Giddings was fluent in speech, 
sincere in his professions and bold in the support of his 
convictions ; and he at once became a leading champion 
of the abolition of slavery and the slave-trade in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia and other territory under the jurisdic- 
tion of the United States Government. He regarded the 
upholding of slavery by the Government, in the mere act 
of permission for its existence on public domain, as a crime 
against human liberty and humanity, and disgraceful to 
the nation. 

The first anti-slavery speech of Mr. Giddings, in Con- 



M TEA 

>-il, upon the war 

int" 

aluable lives and 

_ - contended that it was 

.:\ the ii. 

W - I named the ( 

ngaged in the 
.:xd carried her into 
, whei 
- recognized by the British an 
_it before Congress a ser; - 
ified th«. n the ground of 

_ m, and declared that they 

the Uni (States, and that 
i by the 
. national honor. 

xcitement in and 
nd their author were de- 
r the land. The conscience 
:ie people o: 

and danger of the 5 
it and widespread was the clamor 

- induced 
from 
- 

hundred and twentv-ti 
. 

-elected 

:.ce of 

I 



JAMBS A. QARFIBLD. 

consecutive years, by continued re-elections, and nil that 
time he fought valiantly for the right whenever oc- 
gave him an opportunity. He was an active coadjutor 
of John Quincy Adams in the Anti-Slavery cause, until 
that stateman's death. 

Mr. Gi I lings, though independent of strict party 
ints. generally acted with the Wl _ -. : r he regarded 
the Democratic party as hopelessly bound to the service 
of the slave oligarchy. He gave his hearty supp. : - 
General Harrison and Henry Clay, but refused, on Anti- 
Slaverv grounds, to support General Taylor for the 
Presidency, in - r In that election he acted with the 
feeble Free Soil party. He took a leading part in oppo- 
sition to the Compromise measures, which were comprised 
in the famous " Omnibus Bill" of 1850, especially the 
infamous Fugitive Slave J.aw, which was avowedly in- 
tended for the purpose of bringing about a dissolution of 
the Union. He w - spieuous in the debates on the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1S54, and during 
the troubles in Kansas. 

_ularly had Mr. Giddings been returned to 
Congress by his constituents of the 'Western Reserve, that 
he came to regard his nomination and re-election as 
certain, and became careless of his interests. An ambi- 
tious vonng lawyer named Hutchins, of his dist: 
Republican t. taking advantage of this carelessness, secured 
his own nomination and election, in 1858, ana Mr. 
Giddings was out of Congress the next year. 

The friends of Giddings never forgave Hutchins. and 

determined to put him out a - and re-elect their 

old representative, now sixty-ox years of age. The 

rnment had meanwhile appointed him Consul-Gen- 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

era) at Montreal, and he was so well satisfied with his 

ion and emoluments there, that he declined to 

undertake another campaign for a seat in the National 

lature. Mr. Giddings died at Montreal in May, 

it in Congress was, at that time, tilled by 
ral Garfield. 
Such was the veteran champion of human rights and 
long and deservedly-popular representative of the im- 
portant Ashtabula district of Ohio, to whom General Gar- 
field became successor. It was a subjection of the young 
soldier and statesman to a trying ordeal to follow such a 
itive, but he was equal to the responsibilities 
imposed upon him. He entered the Thirty-eighth Con- 
: m December, L863, and remained in that position, 
by continual re-elections, until called to fill the highest 
office in the gift of his countrymen, a period of seventeen 

General Garfield's colleagues from Ohio in Congress 
during the 61 on of his service were George H. 

Pendleton, Alexander Long. Robert C. Schenck, J. F. 
McEinney, Frank C. De Blond, Chilton A. White, Sam- 
uel E William Johnson, Warren P. Noble, James 
M. A y, Wells, Qutchins, William E. Finck, John 
O'Neill, I Bliss, James II. Morris, Joseph W. 
White, Ephraim K. Echley, and Rufus P. Spaulding. 
Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, was Speaker. 

When Garfield entered Congress the war was still 

• 1 seemed no nearer a conclusion than a year 

. when he became Rosecrans's chief of stall'. Its 

doubtful. The Peace Party were 

doing their utmost to make it unsuccessful. They coun- 

abandonment of tin' war and a peaceable disso- 



JAMES A. GAB FIELD. 2tJ3 

lutiou of the Union. Some of their ideas concerning the 
preservation of peace and accomplishing a "disjunctive 
conjunction " of the Union were unique, to say the least. 
These will be noticed presently. 

Seeing the danger arising from the machinations of 
this party, which consisted chiefly of politicians in oppo- 
sition to the Republican administration ; perceiving that 
some of the officers of the army were infected with the 
virus spread by the Peace Party, and the want of firm, 
thoroughly patriotic, bold, and determined men in mili- 
tary circles, Garfield regretted having resigned his com- 
mission in the army. He was almost persuaded to resign 
his seat in Congress and accept a re-commission as Major- 
General. 

When Rosecrans was superseded, General Thomas, 
Garfield's warm friend and admirer, and then Commander 
of the Army of the Cumberland, was anxious to have 
him back in the army, and in a private letter tendered 
him the command of an Army Corps if he would join 
him. Garfield, in his hesitation and temporary perplexity, 
went to President Lincoln for counsel. The President 
reiterated, in substance, what he had said to the General 
when he was debating whether he should enter Congress 
at all. He said : 

" The Republican majority in Congress is very small, 
and it is more doubtful whether we can carry the neces- 
sary war measure ; and, besides, we are greatly lacking in 
men of military experience in the House to regulate 
legislation about the army. It is your duty to remain in 
Congress." 

This settled the question in Garfield's mind, and he 
went to work as a National Legislator, Math his usual will, 



•j 04 TEE BIOGRAPHY OF 

industry, ability and boldness. lie was placed by Speaker 
C.lfax on the Committee on Military Affairs, which con- 

Bisted of 

Robert C. Schenck, of Ohio. 

John F. Faiixsworth, of Illinois. 

George II. Yeaman, of Kentucky. 

James A. Garfield, of Ohio. 

Benjamin Loan, of Missouri. 

Moses F. Odell, of New York. 

Henry C. Deming, of Connecticut. 

F. W. Kellogg, of Michigan. 

Archibald McAllister, of Pennsylvania. 
The duties of the Committee on Military Affairs, at 
that juncture, were of the utmost importance, and mem- 
bership on ii was considered a post of honor, which many 
eagerly coveted. 

We have observed, by his letter to President Hinsdale, 
from Murfreesborough (page 255), with what abhorrence 
ral Garfield regarded the i: Copperheads," or leaders 
of the Peace Party. That party, by its machinations, had 
become as dangerous to the Republic as the armed Con- 
They had begun their nefarious doings early. 
in July, 1861, Yallandigham and his 
disloyal compeers opposed every measure of the adminis- 
tration for suppressing the insurrection. He proposed the 
appointment of seven Commissioners, who should accom- 
pany the I'inies, with authority to receive from Jefferson 
Davis propositions looking to an armistice, or obedience to 
the National Government; and from that time to the 
end of the war he was the persistent enemy of the Re- 
public. 



James a. gaufield. 265 

Even before the passage of the Ordinance of Seces- 
sion by the South Carolina politicans, some of the loyal 
newspapers of the North, dreading war, with thought 
less haste were disposed to surrender everything to the 
demands of the slave-holders. The New York Tribune 
(November 7, 1860), said : 

" Whenever a considerable portion of our Union shall 
deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive 
measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live 
in a Kepublic whereof one section is piimed to the 
remainder by bayonets.'' 

The mischievous influence of such loose utterances 
on so grave a subject was apparent afterwards. When, 
in June, 1865, Alexander H. Stephens applied to Pres- 
ident Johnson for a pardon, he declared that these words 
of the Tribune were, among other reasons, the cause of 
his espousing the fortunes of the rebellion, as it was one 
of the most influential supporters of the Republican 
party. It made him believe that the separation and 
independence of the Slave-labor States would be granted, 
and that there would be no war. 

On the day before President Lincoln's inauguration 
(March 3, 1861), General Winfield Scott, the General-in- 
Chief of the armies of the Republic, on whose advice 
and skill the incoming President must rely for the sup- 
port of the integrity of the nation and the vindication of 
the laws, wrote to Mr. Seward, the chosen Secretary of 
State, the following extraordinary letter : 

" To meet the extraordinary exigencies of the times, 
it seems to me that I am guilty of no arrogance in limit- 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

ing tin- Presidents field of selection to one of the four 
plan- ol procedure subjoined : 

•■ I. Throw of the old and assume a new designation— 
the Union Party; adopt the conciliatory measures pro- 

I by Mr. Crittenden, or the Peace Convention, and, 
my life upon it, we shall have no new case of secession ; 
but, on the contrary, an early return of many, if not all 
the States which have already broken off from the Union. 
Without some equally benign measure, the remaining 
Slaveholding States will probably join the Montgomery 
Confederacy in less than sixty days— when this city 
| Washington], being included in aforeign country, would 
require a permanent garrison of at least thirty-five thou- 
sand troops to protect the Government within it. 

"II. Collect the duties on foreign goods outside the 
porta of which this Government has lost the command, or 
close such ports by act of Congress, and blockade them. 

"III. Conquer the seceded States by invading armies. 
No doubt this might be done in two or three years, by a 
young ami able general — a Wolfe, a Desaix, or a Hoche — 
with three hundred thousand disciplined men (kept up to 
that number), estimating a third for garrisons, and the 
loss of a y«t greater number by skirmishes, sieges, battles, 
and Southern fevers. The destruction of life and prop- 
erty <>n the other Bide would be frightful, however perfect 
the moral discipline of the invaders. The conquest com- 
!, at that enormous waste of human life to the 
North and Northwest, with at least two hundred and fifty 
millions of dollars added thereto, and cut bono? Fifteen 
desolated Provinces! not to be brought into harmony 
with their conquerors, to be held for generations by heavy 
garric in expense quadruple the net duties or taxes 

which it would be possible to extort from them, followed 
by a Protector or Emperor. 

••IV. Say to the seceded States — Wayward sisters, 

depart ni />"trr.* 

* Scon'* Autobiography. 



JAMES A. GA11FIELD. 209 

On the solicitation of John Van Buren, of New York, 
General Scott gave him the original draft of this letter, 
as an autographic keepsake of a strictly private nature, sup- 
posing that he was simply gratifying the wishes of an hon- 
orable man. His confidence was betrayed, and this private 
letter to Mr. Seward was read to a large public meeting 
of the friends of Horatio Seymour, during the canvass of 
that leader for the office of Governor of New York. The 
letter was used as an implied censure of the policy of the 
Administration of Mr. Lincoln. 

The President of " The American Society for the 
Promotion of the Union," in a letter to the author of 
this volume, designed for publication, gave the follow- 
ing as his plan for securing peace and ultimate re- 
conciliation between the two sections of the Union : — 

" The first and most proper mode of adjusting these 
difficulties is to call a National Convention, in conformity 
with the provisions of the Constitution ; a Convention of 
States, to which body should be referred the whole sub- 
ject of our differences, and then, if but a moiety of the 
lofty, unselfish, enlarged and kind disposition manifested 
in that noble Convention of 1787, which framed our 
Constitution, be the controlling disposition of the new 
convention, we may hope for some amicable adjustment. 
If for any reason this mode cannot be carried out, then 
the second method is one which circumstances may unhap- 
pily force upon us ; but even this mode, so lamentable in 
itself considered, and so extreme — so repulsive to an 
American heart — if judiciously used, may eventuate in a 
modified and even stronger Union. This is the tempo- 
rary yielding to the desire of the South for a separate 



270 TBS BIOGRAPHY OF 

Confederacy ; in other words, an assent to negotiations fur 
a temporary dissolution of the present I nion. 

••Mv object in this mode is to secure, in the end, a 
more permanenl perpetual Union. I well know that this 
i.- a Btartling proposition, and may seem to involve a par- 
adox; but look al ii calmly and carefully, and understand 
what is involved in such an assent. It involves, as a 
paramount consideration, a total cessation on our part of 
the irritating process which for thirty years has been in 
operation against the South. If this system of vituper- 
ation cannot be quelled because wo have 'freedom of 
Bpeech;' if we cannot refrain from the use of exasperat- 
ing and opprobrious language toward our brethren, and 
from offensive intermeddling with their domestic affairs, 
then, of course, the plan tails, and BO will all others for 
a true union. If we cannot tame our tongues, neither 
unionnor peace with neighbors nor domestic tranquillity 
in our homes, can be expected." 

This earnest apostle of Peace then proceeds to notice 
Borne of the formidable difficulties in the way, such as 
fixing the boundary-line bel ween the " two confederacies," 
and the weighty necessity of maintaining, in peaceful 
relations, a standing military army and an army of custom- 
house officials. These considerations, he believed (assum- 
that both parties should never lose their temper), 
would cause a perception of the necessity for compromise, 
" whir] i embodies a entiment vital to the existence of any 
Bociety." There then would be the difficulty of an equi- 
table distribution of the public property, as well a.- an 
ment upon the terms of : , treaty "offensive and 
defensive between the confederacies. Coercion," hesaid, 
"of one State by another, or of one Federated Union by 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 271 

another Federated Union, 1 ' was not to be thought of. 
" The idea is so full of crime and disaster that no man, in 
his right mind, can entertain it for a moment." Suppos- 
ing all these matters to be definitely settled to the perfect 
satisfaction of all parties, the question naturally arose in 
the mind of the writer, "What is to become of the Flag 
of the Union ?" He answered : 

" The Southern section is now [Winter of 1861] agi- 
tating the question of a device for their distinctive flag. 
Cannot this question of flags be so settled as to aid in a 
future Union ? I think it can. If the country can be 
divided, why not the flag ! The Stars and Stripes is the 
flag in which we all have a deep and the self-same 
interest. It is hallowed by the common victories of our 
several wars. We all have sacred associations clustering 
around it in common, and, therefore, if we must be two 
nations, neither nation can lay exclusive claim to it 
without manifest injustice and offense to the other. 
Neither will consent to throw it aside altogether for a 
new and strange device, with no associations of the past 
to hallow it. 

" The most obvious solution of the difficulties which 
spring up in this respect is to divide the old flag, giving 
half to each. It may be done, and in a manner to have 
a salutary moral effect upon both parties. Let the blue 
union be diagonally divided, from left to right or right 
to left, and the thirteen stripes longitudinally, so as to 
make six and a half stripes in the upper, and six and a 
half stripes in the lower portion. Referring to it, as on 
a map, the upper portion being North, and the lower 
portion being South, we have the upper diagonal division 
of the blue field and the upper six and a half stripes for 



279 HIE BIOGRAPHY OF 

the Northern Flag, and the lower diagonal division of 
the blue field and the lower six and a half stripes for the 
Southern Flag. The portion of the blue Held in each 
flaff to contain the stars to the number of States embraced 
in each confederacy. 

" The reasons for such division are obvious. It pre- 
vents all dispute on a claim for the old flag by either 
confederacy. It is distinctive; for the two cannot be 
mistaken for each other, either at sea or at a distance on 
land. Each flag, being a moiety of the old flag, will 
retain something, at least, of the sacred memories of the 
basl tor the sober reflection of each confederacy. And 
then, if a war with some foreign nation, or combination 
of nations, should unhappily occur (all wars being un- 
happy), under our treaty of offense and defense, the two 
separate flags, by natural affinity, would clasp fittingly 
together, and the glorious old flag of the Union, in its 
entirety, would again be hoisted, once more embracing 
all the sister States. Would not this division of the old 
flag thus have a salutary moral effect inclining to union? 
Will there not also be felt a sense of shame when either 
flag is seen by citizens of either confederacy? Will it 
do1 speak to them of the divisions which have separated 
members of the same household, and will not the why be 
forced from their lips, Why is the old flag divided? And 
uh<n once the old time-honored banner, bequeathed to 
as by our honored ancestors of every State, shall be flung 
to the breeze in its original integrity, as the rallying- 
point for a common defense, will not a shout of welcome, 
going up from the Rio Grande to Maine, and from the 
A t Lmtic to the Pacific, rekindle in patriotic hearts in 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 273 

both confederacies a fraternal yearning for the old 
Union?" 

Such was the notable plan for reconciliation put forth 
by the most distinguished, sincere, and truly patriotic 
member of the misguided Peace Party. This novel 
proposition, this experiment of trying to make a delicate 
China vase stronger and more beautiful by first breaking 
it into fragments and cementing it by foreign agency, 
shared the fate of other compromises in Congress and in 
the Peace Convention. It was regarded as insufficient 
and wholly impracticable by every sane man. In con- 
demnation of this particular proposition, came out of the 
past a voice from the Father of his Country, saying, in 
his Farewell Address : 

" It is of infinite moment that you should properly 
estimate the immense value of your National Union to 
your collective and individual happiness ; that you should 
cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to 
it ; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of 
the palladium of your political safety and prosperity ; 
watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety ; dis- 
countenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion 
that it can, in any event, be abandoned ; and indignantly 
frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to 
alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to 
enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the 
various parts." 

There were other leaders of the Peace Party, who as- 
sumed to control the Democratic party, who were not so 
patriotic as was the misguided Professor Morse. In the 
Autumn of 1862, leaders of that party in the city of 
New York called on Lord Lyons, the British Minister at 



274 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Washington (who had just arrived after a brief visit to 
England), with an evident desire to have his government 
interfere in our affairs, and thus secure the independence 
of the Southern Confederacy and the dissolution of the 
Union. The Democratic party had just carried the State 
of New York, and elected Horatio Seymour Governor. 

Lord Lyons found, he said in his dispatch to Lord 
John Russell (November 17, 1862), the "conservative 
leaders " exulting in their success. They felt assurance that 
they would henceforth have strength sufficient to check 
the Government in its vigorous prosecution of the war, 
and believed that the President would heed the voice of 
warning given in the late elections. " On the following 
morning, however," his lordship said, "intelligence ar- 
rived from Washington which dashed the rising hopes of 
the Conservatives," as the Democrats called themselves. 
It was announced that General McClellan, who "had 
been regarded as the representative of Conservative prin- 
ciples in the army," had been superseded in command of 
the army, and suspended from active service. This was 
regarded as an evidence of the determination of the 
President to push straight forward in the course he had 
adopted for the suppression of the rebellion ; and his 
lordship said that the "irritation of the Conservatives" 
seemed " to be not unmixed with consternation and de- 
spondency." 

" Several leaders of the Democratic party," he said, 
•• songht interviews with me, both before and after the ar- 
rival of the intelligence of General McClellan's dismissal. 
The subject uppermost in their minds, while they were 
speaking to me, was naturally that of foreign mediation 
between the North and the South. Many of them seemed 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 275 

to think that this mediation must come at last, but they 
appeared to be very much afraid of its coming too soon. 
It was evident that they apprehended that a premature 
proposal of a foreign intervention would afford the Radi- 
cal party a means of reviving the violent war spirit, and 
thus defeat their peaceful plans." Then they laid before 
his lordship " the plans and hopes of the Conservative 
party. At the bottom, I thought," continued his lord- 
ship, " I perceived a desire to put an end to the war, even 
at the risk of losing the Southern States altogether ; but 
it was plain that it was not thought prudent to avow this 
desire. Indeed, some hints of it, dropped before the 
elections, were so ill received that a strong declaration in 
the contrary sense was deemed necessary by the Demo- 
cratic leaders. At the present moment, therefore, the 
chiefs of the Conservative party call loudly for a more 
vigorous prosecution of the war, and reproach the Gov- 
ernment with slackness, as well as a want of success in its 
military measures." 

These leaders expressed themselves determined to 
stand by " the South " in perj)etuating slavery, and if 
their party should, as they hoped, speedily acquire the 
control of public affairs, " they would be disposed to accept 
an offer of mediation, if it appeared to be the only means 
of putting a stop to hostilities." They would prefer to 
have such proposition come from the great European 
powers conjointly, and Great Britain to appear as little 
prominent as possible. 

On August 29, 1864, a Democratic National Conven- 
tion to nominate a candidate for President of the United 
States assembled at Chicago. It appeared to be under 
the complete control of the leaders of the Peace Party. 



270 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

In his address at the opening of the convention, its presi- 
dent spoke bitterly against the Government. The con- 
vention was crowded with leaders of the Peace Party, 
either as delegates or spectators. The convention nomi- 
nated General George B. McClellan for President, and 
adopted resolutions which gave satisfaction and hope to 
the Confederates. Especially pleasing to them was the 
following : 

" Resolved, That this Convention does explicitly de- 
clare, as the sense of the American people, that, after 
four years of failure to restore the Union by the experi- 
ment of war, during which, under the pretense of a mili- 
taiy necessity, of a war-power higher than the Constitu- 
tion, the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every 
part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden 
down, and the material prosperity of the country essen- 
tially impaired, — justice, humanity, liberty, and the 
public welfare demand that immediate efforts be made 
for a cessation of hostilities, with a view to an ultimate 
convention of all the States, or other peaceable means, to 
the end that, at the earliest practicable moment, peace 
may be restored on the basis of the Federal Union of the 
States." 

On the 22d of September, 1864, Alexander H. Ste- 
phens, Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy, wrote : 

"The action of the Chicago Convention, so far as its 
platform of principles goes, presents a ray of light, which, 
under Providence, may prove the dawn of the day to this 
long and cheerless night — the first ray of light I have seen 
from tlic North since the war began. This cheers the 
heart, and toward it I could almost exclaim, ' Hail, holy 
light, offspring of heaven, first-born of the eternal co- 



JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 277 

eternal beam, may I express thee, unblamed, since God is 
light!'" 

The general sentiment of leading men in the Confed- 
eracy was that the election of the Chicago nominee would 
secure the independence of that Confederacy, and it 
stimulated them to fight the Union soldiers more des- 
perately, feeling that success on the part of the Confeder- 
ate armies would assist the election of McClellan. 

"All of us perceive," said the Charleston Courier, 
" the intimate connection existing between the armies of 
the Confederacy and the Peace men in the United States. 
These constitute two immense forces, that are working to- 
gether for the procurement of peace. The party whose 
nomination and platform we are considering are alto- 
gether dependent for success on the courage and resolution 
of our fighting men. If their generalship, sagacity, valor 
and vigilance are unable to obtain victories, and to arrest 
the progress of the invading hordes, the existing adminis- 
tration will laugh to scorn all the efforts of the opposition, 
and, in spite of the most powerful combinations, will con- 
tinue to hold the places they occupy. Our success in 

BATTLE INSURES THE SUCCESS OF McClELLAN. Our FAIL- 
URE WILL INEVITABLY LEAD TO HIS DEFEAT. It is the vic- 
tories that have crowned our arms since this year began 
that have given existence, strength and harmony to that 
organization which has arrayed itself with firm, defiant 
front against the despot and his minions." 

According to an official report of the Judge Advocate 
of the United States, there was, at the time of this Chicago 
Convention, an organization of about half a million men, 
west of the Alleghany Mountains, pledged to " take up 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

arms against any government found waging war against 
a people endeavoring to establish a government of their 
own;'* in other words, to assist the insurgents then in 
arms against their government.. The membership of this 
conspiracy was composed almost wholly of adherents of 
the Peace party. 

It is believed that this conspiracy was conceived and 
planned by the Confederate leaders at Richmond, and was 
managed, chiefly, in its preparations to strike a blow, by 
Jacob Thompson (ex-Secretary of the Interior), who was 
then in Canada. It contemplated a general and simul- 
taneous uprising of the members in Missouri, Illinois, 
Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and the occasion was to be 
the meeting of the Democratic Convention at Chicago. 
Then and there the first blow, the signal for the uprising, 
was to be given. 

The city of Chicago and the Convention was crowded 
with these disloyal Peace men. The plot had, fortunately, 
been discovered and its mischief provided against some 
weeks before, by Colonel J. B. Sweet, the Assistant 
( 'ommander of Cami: Douglas, a rendezvous for Confed- 
erate prisoners. He had positive knowledge of the pre- 
parations in Canada for striking the blow at Chicago, ^nd 
had a force ready to meet it. " We outnumbered you 
two to one," said a leader in the conspiracy to a writer in 
the AiUmtic Monthly^ "but our force was badly dis- 
ciplined. Success in such circumstances was impossible, 
and on the third day of the Convention we announced 
from headquarters that an attack at that time was impos- 
sible." 

I have given these items concerning the character, 
conduct, and malign influence of the leaders of the Peace 



MMBS A. GARFIELD. 279 

Party during the Civil War, as a justification (if needed) 
of the intense dislike of General Garfield to the class of 
men called "Copperheads," a general name for these 
leaders. His opinion of them was expressed in a letter 
which he wrote to a friend, a week after the Convention 
at Chicago. He said : 

" It was a strange spectacle. To see ignorant, perhaps 
degraded men, whose intellectual and moral capacities are 
insufficient to enable them to comprehend the dignity of 
American citizenship and the value of our free institu- 
tions, recklessly imperilling both by seditious or traitorous 
acts, is, indeed, a sad sight ; but where men of intelligence, 
men of education, who have enjoyed the blessings of 
moral culture, and are endowed with powers sufficient to 
fully comprehend the value and dignity of our Republic ; 
men who claim to be leaders of political opinion, and 
oracles of wisdom, perform acts which they must know 
to be perilous to the State, it is a far sadder sight. I will 
not place so low an estimate on the intelligence of the 
leaders in the Convention, as to believe that they did not 
comprehend in all its fullness, the perils involved in their 
resolution that the administration ought to give up the 
struggle for the salvation of the Republic. 

" No ! They well knew that such an inglorious aban- 
donment of the fight ; such a confession of weakness ; 
such an evidence of lack of faith in justice and the favor 
of God in a righteous cause, by the authorities of a great 
nation, would not only destroy our grand Union, but 
utterly banish the hopes of mankind in the strength and 
efficiency of free institutions. Yet to gain a paltry politi- 
cal advantage, they seemed willing to create the peril. 

" But I suspect they shrewdly calculate that the real 



080 THE BIO&BAPHY OF 

patriotism of the nation will save it. So it will. The 
voice -'i' salvation and rebuke will be loudly spoken at the 
pollfi in November." 

Thia prophecy was fulfilled. The thinking men of 
the Democratic party were shocked, and were amazed by 
the perpetration of such a political blunder. The loyal 
people of both parties were amazed at the spectacle of a 
large body of influential citizens professing "fidelity to 
tin- Inion under the Constitution, ,, making such a treason- 
Mi, it- proposition; and the soldiers in the field and in the 
camp were amazed and indignant, because of this ungen- 
erous impeachment of their valor. 

The verdict of the people at the ballot-box was, that 
after years of distressing war, and with the burden upon 
its shoulders of a public debt, then amounting to two 
thousand million dollars, the nation was determined to 
Bghl on and put down the Rebellion and save the Repub- 
lic ; ,t any cost. The nominee of the Chicago Convention 
received the vote of only the two late slave-labor States, 
Delaware and Kentucky, and the State of New Jersey. 
A load was lifted from the great loyal heart of the 
Republic. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 283 



CHAPTER XII. 

garfield's first engagement in debate in congress. 

General Garfield's power in Congress was felt f rom 
the beginning. He grasped every subject that came up 
for discussion, with the hand of a master, sure of its grip. 
He was not obtrusive ; on the contrary, he was modest. 
He was simply always ready to meet the requirements of 
any duty laid upon him, whether in the committee-room 
or on the floor of the House of Representatives. 

At the opening of the Thirty -eighth Congress, the 
period of the great and vital war-legislation was begun. 
The subject of the war was, indeed, the chief topic of 
discussion, in and out of Congress, at that momentous 
crisis in our national history. In that legislation and ac- 
companying discussions, General Garfield's labors were 
prodigious. Much of the time he performed the labor of 
two men, and yet with apparent ease. As a member of 
the Committee on Military Affairs, he worked incessantly 
and most efficiently. 

In the discussions which followed reports of his com- 
mittee, General Garfield was a most effective debater. 
His speeches were always marked by great clearness of 
logic, eloquence of utterance, wealth of facts, broad 
scholarship, and a conciliatory but uncompromising tone. 
Unless some special occasion should arouse him to the use 
of invective, as in the case of his reply to his Ohio col- 
li 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

league, Alexander Long, which will be noticed presently, 
Idora Bpoke an offensive word. 

Garfield's speeches, during the first session of the 
Thirty-eighth Congress (1863-64), were quite numerous 
and most effective. The principal of these were a speech 
on tin- "Deficiency bill," "Bill to continue bounties," 
"Revenue bill," " Confiscation," "Conscription bill," 
" Bill to revive grade of Lieutenant-General," "Resolu- 
tion of thanks to General Thomas," "Sale of surplus 
gold," "• Relating to enlistments in the Southern States," 
" Bill to drop unemployed general officers," " New Jersey 
railroad bill," " Currency bill," " The state of the Union, 
in reply to Mr. Long," " The expulsion of Mr. Long," 
" A correspondence with the Rebels," "Revenue bill 
(No. 405)," "The inquiry in relation to the Treasury De- 
partment," "The Army appropriation bill," "Penn- 
sylvania war claims," "The bankrupt bill," "Repeal of 
fugitive slave law," " Bill to provide for claims for rebel- 
lion losses." 

At the very beginning of its session, the Thirty-eighth 
Congress had to face the all-important question, "What 
shall be done to fill up the army ?" The first answer to 
this question was a resolution introduced on January 6, 
1864, which proposed to effect the object by the offer and 
payment of bounties. This bill was popular with the 
soldier,-, [or it offered recruits, whether they "jumped" 
the Bervice or Berved out their time honestly, a large 
premium for enlistment. Congress was unanimously in 
favor of it, to]' it would make them popular with the 
Army, and seemed to be just : but when the vote was to 
be taken, General Garfield, who was regarded as the 



JAMES .!. QARFlELb. 285 

special friend of the soldier in the House, arose and 
said : 

" Mr. Speaker : I regret that I was not able to meet 
with the Military Committee when this resolution was 
under consideration. I did not reach the city until a few 
hours before the House met this morning ; but if 1 under- 
stand the matter correctly from the public journals, the 
request of the President and the War Department was to 
continue the payment of bounties until the 1st of Febru- 
ary next ; but the resolution, before the House proposes to 
extend the payment until the 1st of March. And while 
the President asks us to continue the payment of bounties 
to veteran volunteers only, the resolution extends it to all 
volunteers, whether veterans or raw recruits. If the reso- 
lution prevails, it seems to me we shall swamp the finances 
of the Government before the 1st of March arrives. I can- 
not consent to a measure which authorizes the expendi- 
ture of so vast a sum as will be expended under this reso- 
lution, unless it be shown absolutely indispensable to the 
work of filling up the army. 

" I am anxious that veterans should volunteer, and 
that liberal bounties should be paid to them. But if we 
extend the payment to all classes of volunteers for two 
months to come, I fear we shall swamp the Government. 
Before I vote for this resolution, I desire to know whether 
the Government is determined to abandon the draft. If 
it be its policy to raise an army solely by volunteering and 
paying bounties, we have one line of policy to pursue. If 
the conscription law is to be anything but a dead letter 
on the statute book, our line of policy is a very different 
one. I ask the gentleman from Illinois to inform me what 
course is to be adopted. I am sorry to see in this resolu- 
tion the indication of a timid and vacillating course. It 
is unworthy the dignity of our Government and our army 
to use the conscription act as a scarecrow, and the bounty 
system as a bait, to alternately scare and coax men into 



THE BIOGHAPffT <>r 

tl u . army. Lei ns give libera] bounties to veteran soldiers 
i may re-enlist, and for raw recruits use the draft." 

This little speech astonished everybody, especially his 

political friends. 

The vote Btood one hundred and twelve "ayes" to two 
"nays." The latter were those of General Garfield and 
Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa. It is said that Mr. Chase, then 
Secretary of the Treasury, meeting' General Garfield a 
dav <>r two afterwards, said to him: "1 was proud of 
your vote the other day. You were right. Bui you 
just started in public lit", and I want you to bear in 
mind that iris a very risky thing to vote against your 
whole party. It is a good thing to do sometimes, hut not 
very often. Do it sparingly and carefully." 

General Garfield's wisdom was soon vindicated by the 
decisive arguments of concurring events. 

General Garfield'i first motion in the House of Rep- 
res sntatives was made on January I-".. L864, asking unani- 
mous consent for a resolution authorizing the printing of 
ten thousand extra copies of the reports of his former 
chief, Major-General Etosecrans. The next day, for the 
first time, he took part in the debates in the House. 

The occasion was a discussion of the subject of the 
seizure and confiscation of the property of the insurgents. 
- 5. Cox, his colleague from Ohio, was opposed to the 
measure; Garfield wa infavorof it. After saying, "We 
punish men for civil and criminal offenses, great and 
.-mall, in all the higher and lower court- of the country, 

by taking their property from them, bo that their children 
cannot have the benefit of it after the parent's death," he 
d : 



JAMES .1. UMiFIELD. 



287 



"Does not my colleague propose to make an exception 
in favor of the crime of treason ? Why should not the 
children of traitors suffer the same kind of loss and incon- 
venience as the children of thieves and other felons ?" 

Mr. Cox made brief reply, and asked: 

" Does my colleague believe that he can constitution- 
ally take a traitor's property forever, or only during his 
life?" 

Referring to the Third Section, Article III., of the 
Constitution, he said : 

"All I propose to do in opposing this bill is to stand 
by the Constitution, and to stand by it all the time, regard- 
less of consequences." 

He then asked, after referring to commentators on 
the Constitution, and the implied construction given it by 
Law in 1790 : 

"Would he set aside that Constitution? Or would 
he, dare he, with his oath upon him, nuw break the Con- 
stitution by voting for this measure, in order to get abso- 
lute title to the lands of those in revolt ?" 



Greneral Garfield replied, calmly : 

"I would not break the Constitution for any such 
purpose. I would not break the Constitution at all, un- 
less it became necessary to overleap its barriers to save the 
government and tin' Union. But,'' he added, "I do not 
see that in this bill we do break the Constitution. If the 
gentleman can show me that it overturns the Constitution 
1 will vote against it with him, even though every mem- 
ber of my party votes against it ; that makes no differ- 
ence to me." 



• 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

In tills Last clan-'' Genera] Garfield gave the key-note 
eer in C< for seventeen years — 

gent gh-tninded, independent and just. 

leral Garfield's first considerable speech in Con- 
bis " maiden speech " in the .National Legislature, 
was pronounced on this subject of Confiscation on Jan- 
nary 28, L864. Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, 
Bpoke of it as "the speech of the Session." It was a 
masterly effort, and cast a copious effulgence upon the 
whole question, legal and otherwise. It must be remem- 
bered that Garfield was then only thirty-three years of 
ml was fresh from the field of war. I give below 
his .-perch on that occasion, in full, as it was reported in 
the Congressional Globe, because it introduces the render, 
at once and forever, to a knowledge of the intellectual 
power of the man : 

•• Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to ask the atten- 
tion of the Eouse, or to occupy its time on this question 
of confiscation at all, but -nine things have been said 
touching its military aspects which make it proper forme 
to trespass upon the patience of the House, even at this 
late period of the discussion. Feeling that, in some small 
•'. I represent on this floorthe Arm\ of the Republic, 

I am the i e emboldened to speak on this subject before 

I have been surprised that in so length] and able a 
■ so little reference has been made to the nun-its 
of the resolution itself. Y< i\ much of the debate has had 
one \\ hicb I believe, n ith all deference 
judgment and maturer experience of other.-, 
ormane to the subject before the House. In the 
■ II. the various theories of the legal 
and political status of the rebellious States have been ex- 
amined, whether they exisl any longer as states, whether 
are in the Union or out of it. It is perhaps necessary 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 289 

that we take ground upon that question as preliminary to 
the discussion of the resolution itself. Two theories, dif- 
fering widely from each other, have been proposed ; but 
I cannot consider either of them as wholly correct. I 
cannot agree with the distinguished gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania [Mr. Stevens], who acknowledges that these 
States are out of the Union, and now constitute a foreign 
people ; nor can I, on the other hand, agree with those 
who believe that the insurgent States are not only in the 
Union, but have lost none of their rights under the Con- 
stitution and laws of the Union. 

" Our situation affords a singular parallel to that of 
the people of Great Britain in their great revolution of 
the seventeenth century. From time immemorial it was 
the fiction of English law that the kingship was immortal, 
hereditary, and inalienable ; that the king was 'king by 
the grace of God ;' he could do no wrong, and his throne 
could never be vacant. But the logic of events brought 
these questions to a practical test. 

"James left the throne, threw the great seal of the 
nation into the Thames, and, fleeing from his own people, 
took refuge in France. The great statesmen of the king- 
dom took counsel together on some of the very questions 
which we are discussing to-day. One said, ' The king 
has abdicated, and we will put another in his place.' 
Another said, ' The crown is hereditary, and we must 
put the heir in his place.' The men of books and black- 
letter learning answered, 'Nemo est luercs viventis :' 'the 
king is alive, and can have no heir.' Another said, ' We 
will appoint a regent, and consider the kingship in abey- 
ance until the king returns.' The people said, 'We will 
have a king, but not James.' 

" Through all this struggle two facts were apparent ; 
the throne was vacant, and their king was unworthy to 
fill it ; and they filled it with the man of their choice. 
We are taught by this that whenever a great people desire 
to do a thing which ought to be done, they will find the 
means of doing it. In this Government we have thrown 



*90 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

off the kingly fiction, but there is another which we are 
following ae slavishly as ever England followed that. 
Here, corporatione are more than kings. It is the doc- 
trine of our common law (if avc may be said to have a 
common law), that corporations have neither souls nor 
: that they cannot commit crimes; that they 
cannoi be punished, and that they are immortal. These 
propositions are being applied to the rebel States. They 
are corporations of a political character, bodies corporate 
and politic ; they are immortal, and cannot be touched by 
the justice of law, or by the power of an outraged Govern- 
ment. They hover around our borders like malignant, 
bloody fiends, carrying death in their course ; and yet we 
ure told they cannot be punished or their ancient rights 
invaded. The people of the South, under the direction 
of those phantom States, are moving the powers of earth 
and hell to destroy this Government. They plead the 
urder of their States as their shield from punishment, and 
the State- plead the impunity of soulless corporations. 

" But the American people will not be deluded by 
Ihese theories nor waste time in discussing them. They 
ivill strike through all shams with the sword, and find a 
practical solution as England did. And what is that 
practical solution? The Supreme Court of the United 
States has helped us at this point in one of the prize cases 
decided March 3, L863. It is there decided in effect : 

"'That BinceJulj L3, L861, the United States have fuD 
belligerent rights againsl all persons residing in the dis- 
trict- declared by the Pres i 1 1 ei 1 1 "s proclamation to bo in 
rebellion. 9 

" ' That the laws of war, whether that war be civil or 
inter gentes, convert every citizen of the hostile State into 
a public enemy, and treat him accordingly, whatever may 
ha\r been hie prc^ ious conduct.' 

"• That all the rights derived from the laws of war may 
now. since 1861, be lawfully and constitutionally exercised 
against all the citizens of the districts in rebellion.' 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

" They decided there that the same laws of war which 
apply to hostile foreign States are to bo applied to this 
rebellion. But in so deciding they do not decide that the 
rebellions States are therefore a foreign people. 1 do not 
hold it necessary to admit that they are a foreign people. 
I do not admit it. I claim, on the contrary, that the 
obligations of the Constitution still hang over them ; but 
by their own act of rebellion they have cut themselves off 
from all their rights and privileges under the Constitu- 
tion. 

'• When the Government of the United States declared 
that we were in a state of war, the rebel States came un- 
der the laws of war. By their acts of rebellion and war 
they swept away every vestige of their civil and political 
rights under the Constitution of the United States. Their 
obligations still remained ; but the reciprocal rights 
which usually accompany obligations, they had forfeited. 

" The question then lies open before us : In a state of 
war, under the laws of war, is this resolution legal and 
politic ? I insist, Mr. Speaker, that the question involved 
in the resolution before this House is whether this Gov- 
ernment, in its exercise of its rights of a belligerent under 
the laws of war, cannot punish these rebels and confiscate 
their estates, both personal and real, for life and forever. 
That is the only question before us. 

" Gentlemen have learnedly discussed the constitutional 
powers of Congress to punish the crime of treason. It 
matters not how that question is decided ; it has no bear- 
ing whatever on the resolution before the House. I will 
only say in passing that the Supreme Court has never de- 
cided that the clause of the Constitution relating to treason 
prohibits forfeiture beyond the lifetime of persons at- 
tainted. No man in this House has brought a decision of 
the Supreme Court giving the rendering to the Constitu- 
tion which these gentlemen on the other side of the 
Chamber have given to it. They can claim no more than 
thai the question is res non <td judicata. The arguments 
we have heard are su.^cient evidence to me ? at least, that 



Till: BIOGRAPHY OF 

the framere of our Constitution intended that Congress 
should define treason, and provide for its punishment, but 

lie of the English common law which permitted at- 
tainder, corruption of M I, and forfeiture, after the 

death of the attainted, should nol prevail in this country. 
To me the clause carries an absurdity on its face, if it be 
interpreted to mean thai treason, the highest crime known 

■..-, shall bo punished with less severity, bo far as it 
regards the estate of the criminal, than any other crime 
or misdemeanor whatsoever. But, as I he fore .-aid. the 

■ ,t law ■ fiscation is based on the rights of 

belligerents a the laws of war. The gentleman from 

Y'>rk [Mr. ;'i:!:xAMi.) Wood] a few days since, in his 
address to the House, gave us a history of the rebellions 
which had occurred in this country. 1 wish to call his 
attention to another rebellion in this Country which he did 
not notice, and in which the question of confiscation was 

Eully and \< ty practically discussed. This fact has 

not. I believe, been brought to the attention of the House. 

I Tentlemeu forgei thai this Union had its origin in 

ition, ami that confiscation played a very important 

:i the war of that Revolution ? It was a civil war, 
and th colonies were Ear more equally divided in reference 
to thr question of loyalty and independence than the 
South now are on the question of to-day. 
Man_\ of the thirteen colonies had almost equal pai ties for 
and againsl England in thai struggle. In New York the 
pai-tie-, were of nearly equal strength. In South Carolina 
it i- claimed that there were more Royalists than Whigs. 
Twenty thousand A.merican Tories appeared in the armies 
againsl us in the revolutionary struggle. Thirty regi- 
ments of them held their places in the British line. 

•• ( > i. Eat! i I had to deal with these men, and with 

their How did the} solve the problem ? 1 have 

looked into the history, and find it Full of instruction. 

one ,,f the thirteen colonic,-, with a single excep- 
tion, confiscated the real and personal property of ever) 

in arm-. They did it. too. by .lie recOEQ meiidat ion 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 293 

of Congress. Not only so, but they drove Tory sympa- 
thizers from the country; they would not permit them to 
remain upon American soil. Examine the statutes of 
every colony, except of New Hampshire, which the tide of 
battle never reached, and you will find confiscation laws 
of the most thorough and sweeping character. When our 
commissioners were negotiating the treaty of peace, the 
last matter of difference and discussion was that of confis- 
cated property. 

"The British commissioners urged the restoration of 
confiscated estates, but Jay and Franklin and their col- 
leagues defended the right of confiscation with great 
ability, and refused to sign the treaty at all if that was to 
be a condition. "While these negotiations were pending 
the colonies memorialized Congress to guard against any 
concessions on the point in dispute. On the 17th day of 
December, 1782, the Legislature passed the following 
resolution : 

" ' That the laws of this State confiscating property 
held under the laws of the former Government (which 
had been dissolved and made void) by those who have 
never been admitted into the present social compact, being 
founded ou legal principles, were strongly dictated by 
that principle of common justice, demand that, if virtuous 
citizens, in defense of their natural and constitutional 
rights, risk their life, liberty and property on their suc- 
cess, the vicious citizens who side with tyranny and op- 
pression, or who cloak themselves under the mask of 
neutrality, should at least hazard their property, and not 
enjoy the benefits procured by the labors and dangers of 
those whose destruction they wished. 

" ' That all demands or requests of the British Court 
for the restitution of property confiscated by this State, 
being neither supported by law, equity, or policy, are 
wholly inadmissible, and that our Delegates in Congress 
be instructed to move Congress that they may direct their 
deputies, who shall represent these States in the General 
Congress for adjusting a peace or truce, neither to agree 
to any such restitution or submit that the laws made by 



TEE BIOQBAPET OF 

any in depend en I State of this Union be subjected to the 
adjudication of any power or powers on earth.' 

"This resolution was passed unanimously by the Leg- 
islature of Virginia. Similar resolutions were passed by 
other Statu.-, and our commissioners were instructed by 
Congress to admit noconditions which would compel the 
ation of confiscated estates. The commissioners 
compromised al last on the fifth article of the treaty of 
peace as it now stands recorded, which provides that Con- 
gress shall recommend to the several colonies to restore con- 
fiscated property : but it was well understood by both 
parties that it would not be done. Congress passed the 
resolution of recommendation as a matter of form ; but no 
complied, nor was it expected. It was, however, 
provided, that no further confiscations should be made, 
and that Tories should be permitted to remain in America 
twelve months after the treaty. 

" Mr. Jefferson, when Secretary of State, in 1702, and 
writingupon that subject, held the following language 
to the British Government through its minister : and I 
wish my colleague [Mr. Finck] who last occupied the 
floor to notice this extract so far as it relates to the rights 
of belligerents : 

"'Sir. :;. It cannot be denied that the state of war 
strictly permit- a nation to seize the property of its ene- 
miee Found within its own Limits, or taken in war, and in 
whatever form it exists, whether in action or possession. 
I is so perspicuously laid down by one of the most 
ctable writer- on subjects of this kind, that 1 shall 
age hi- words : " Since it is a condition of war that ene- 
maj be deprived of all their rights, it is reasonable 
that everything of an enemy's, found among his enemies, 
should change its owner, and go to the treasury. 
l . moreover, usually directed, in all declarations of 

war, that the goods of enemies, as well th086 found among 

us a- those taken in war. -hall be confiscated. If we fol- 
low the mere right of war. even immovable property may be 
sold, and it- price earned into tin- treasury, as is the cus- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 297 

torn with movable property. But in almost all Europe it 
is only notified that their profits, during the war, shall be 
received by the treasury ; and, the war being ended, the 
immovable property itself is restored, by agreement, to 
the former owner.'' 

" ' 1. Exile and confiscations. 

" 'After premising that these are lawful acts of war, 
I have shown that the fifth article was recommendatory 
only, its stipulations being, not to restore the confiscations 
and exiles, but to recommend to the State Legislatures to 
restore them ; 

" ' That this word, having but one meaning, estab- 
lishes the intent of the parties ; and, moreover, that it 
was particularly explained by the American negotiators, 
that the Legislatures would be free to comply with the 
recommendation or not, and probably would not com- 
ply ; 

" ' That the British negotiators so understood it ; 

" ' That the British ministry so understood it ; 

" 'And the members of both Houses of Parliament, 
as well those who approved as who disapproved the ar- 
ticle. 

" ' I have shown that Congress did recommend 
earnestly and bona fide ; 

" ' That the States refused or complied, in a greater 
or less degree, according to circumstances, but more of 
them and in a greater degree than was expected.' — Jeffer- 
son's Works, vol. 3. 



" And Jefferson concludes the passage by saying that 
the right to confiscate is undoubted as a war right. He 
moreover goes on to say the British Government knew 
they had no right to demand that we should restore con- 
fiscated property. The members of Parliament admitted 
in their speeches that the treaty was based upon the 
knowledge that they had no right to demand the restitu- 
tion of confiscated estates. 

"The Tories that fled to England called upon the 
Crown to support them. A commission was appointed 
to examine, their claims and provide for their wants. I 
say it is a significant fact that of the vast number of 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Tories, perhaps not a thousand remained in this country 
after the war. The people would not endure their 
ace. They were .linen out, and took refuge in all 
quarters of the globe. Thej colonized New Brunswick, 
Nova Scotia, and were scattered along the borders of 
Canada. The States would not tolerate the presence of 
the few who came back under the provisions of the treaty, 
and refused them the right of voting, or of holding office 
or property. It was well known that there could be no 
between our loyal people and them. Their history 
is a sad record of infamy, obscurity and misery. Some 
exhibited their vengeful hate long after the war was over. 
Girty and his associates, who murdered Crawford in the 
Indian wars of 1791, were Tories of the Revolution. 
Bowdcs and Panlon, leaders among the Creek Indians, 
and who Btarted the Florida troubles, which resulted in 
a long and bloody conflict in the swamps of that State, 
were Tories. As a class, they Avent out with the brand of 
Cam upon them, and were not permitted to return. 

" One State alone relented. South Carolina passed an 
act of oblivion, restored a large part of the confiscated es- 
tates, and permitted the Tories to vote and hold office. 
Her policy has borne its bitter fruit. Her government 
has hardly been entitled to be called republican. The 
spirit of monarch} has ruled her councils, and at last 
plunged our Republic into the most gigantic and bloody 
of revolutions. 

" Lei ae take counsel from the wisdom of our fathers. 
Is it probable thai those men who confiscated all the prop- 
erty of armed Tories would, a few years later, establish it 
a- a fundamental doctrine of the Constitution that no 
confiscation can he made beyond the lifetime of the in- 
dividual ai tainted ? It is not probable that men who had 
ju-t done what they stubbornly held to be right should 

enact a- a part of the supreme law of the land that it 
Bhould never he dune again. 

•• I come now to the question more directly before us. 

Tin- question of land. Mi'. Speaker, i- inseparably con- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



209 



•nected with the peculiar institution of the .South. It is 
well known that the power of slavery rests in large plan- 
tations; that the planter's capital drives the poor whites 
to the mountains, where liberty always loves to dwell, 
and to the swamps and by-places of the South ; but the 
bulk of all the landed estates is in the hands of the slave- 
owners who have plotted this great conspiracy. Let me give 
you an instance of this, one of a thousand that might be 
given. In the town of Murfreesboro', Rutherford county, 
Tennessee, a place made sacred and glorious forever by the 
valor of our Army, there are fourteen thousand four hun- 
dred and ninety-three acres of land owned by sixteen per- 
sons, and three of the sixteen men own more than ten 
thousand of the acres. One of the three owns half of the 
whole township of Murfreesboro'. And that is only a 
specimen of what these men of the South are to the lands 
of the South. Only a few hundred men own the bulk of 
the land in any Southern State, and these men hold the 
lands and own the slaves. These men plotted the rebel- 
lion and thrust it upon us. They have had the political 
power in their hands, and if you permit them to go back 
to their lands rhey will have it again. The laws of nature, 
the laws of society, cannot be overcome by the resolutions 
of Congress. Grant a general amnesty, let tbese men go 
back to their lands, and the land-owners will again con- 
trol the South. They have so long believed themselves 
born to rule that they will rule the poor man as with a 
rod of iron. The landless man of the South has learned 
the lesson of submission so well that when he is con- 
fronted b} r a landed proprietor he begins to be painfully 
deferential, he is facile and dependent, and less a man 
than if he stood on God's acre covered by his own title- 
deed. 

" Gentlemen, if we want a lasting peace, if we want 
to put down this rebellion so that it shall stay forever put 
down, we must put down its guilty cause ; Ave must put 
down slavery; we must take away the platform on which 
slavery stands — the great landed estates of the armed 



300 Tin: BIOGSAPHT OF 

rebels of the South. Strike thai platform from beneath 
their feet, take thai land away, and divide it into homes 
for the men who have Baved our country. 1 pul that to 
this House as a necessity which stares us in the face. 
What, lei me ask you, will you do with the battle-fields 
of the South? Who owns them? Who owns the red 
field i River? Two or three men own it ail. And 

who ;*!<• these two or three men ? Rebels every one— one 
of them a man who once sat in this chamber, hut who is 
now a lender in the ranks of the rebel army. Will you 
let him come hack and repossess his land? Will you ask 
i when you go to visit the grave of your 
dead sou who deeps in the bosom of that sacred held ? 
It' the principles of the gentlemen on the other side be 
carried out. there is not one of the great battle-fields of 
the war (save Gettysburg, which lies yonder on this side 
of the line) that will not descend to the sons of rebels for 
all time to come — to men whose fathers found a bail emi- 
nence by fighting against their country, and who will love 
their fathers lor affection's sake, and love rebellion for 
their fathers' sake. God forbid that we should ever visit 
those -pots made Bacred by the blood of so many thousand 
brave men. and see our enemies holding the fields and 
plow mil;- the graves of our brethren, while the sweat of 
-lave, falls on the sod which ought to be forever sacred 
i.i everj American citizen. 

•• The historj of opinion and its changes in the Arim 

is a \er\ interesting one. When the war broke out, men 

sprang to arm- from all parties by a common impulse of 

rous patriotism, which 1 am glad to acknowledge in 

the p of those in whose hearts that impulse seems 

to have died. 

•• I remember to have said to a friend when 1 entered 
tiie army, ' You hale slavery, bo d<> 1 : hut 1 hate disunion 
more. Lei us drop the Blavery question, and fighl to sus- 
tain the Union. When the supremacy of the Government 
ha- ; . tablished, we will attend to the other ques^ 

Hon." I .-aid n in good faith. 



J A MRS A. GARFIELD. 



30 I 



' ' I said to another, ' You love slavery. Do you love 
the Union more ? If you do, go with me ; we will let 
slavery alone, and fight for the Union. When that is 
saved, we will take up our old quarrel, if there is anything 
left to quarrel about.' 

" I started out with that position, taken in good faith, 
as did thousands of others of all parties, but the army soon 
found, do what it would, the black phantom met it every- 
where, m the camp, in the bivouac, on the battle-field, 
and at all times. It was a ghost that would not be laid 
— slavery was both the strength and the weakness of the 
enemy. His strength, for it tilled the fields and fed the 
legions ; its weakness, for in the hearts of slaves dwelt 
dim prophecies that their deliverance from bondage would 
be the outcome of the war. 

" Mr. Seward says, in an official dispatch to our minis- 
ter at St. James', Mr. Adams : ' Everywhere the American 
general receives his most useful and reliable information 
from the negro, who hails his coming as the harbinger of 
freedom.' These ill-used men came from the cotton-fields, 
they swam rivers, they climbed mountains, they came 
through jungles, in the darkness and storms of the night, 
to tell us that the enemy was coming here or coming 
there. They were our true friends in every case. There 
has hardly been a battle, a march, or any important event 
of the war where the friend of our cause, the black man, 
has not been found truthful and helpful, and always de- 
votedly loyal. The practical truth forced itself upon the 
mind of every soldier that, behind the rebel army of 
soldiers, the black army of laborers was feeding and sus- 
taining the rebellion, and there could be no victory till its 
main support were taken away. 



' You take my house when you do take the prop 
That doth sustain my house.' 



" The rebellion falls when you take away its chief 
prop, slavery and landed estates, 



802 THE BIOGRAPHT OF 

" Gentlemen on the other side, you tell me that this is 
an abolitiori war. If you please to say so, I grant it. The 
rapid war-current of events has made the army of the Re- 
public an abolition army. I can find you in the ranks a 
thousand men who are in favor of sweeping away slavery 
to every dozen that are in favor of sustaining it. They 
have been where they have seen its malevolence, its bale- 
ful effects upon the country and the Union, and they de- 
mand that it shall be swept away. I never expected to 
discuss the demerits of slavery again, for I deem it un- 
necessary. The fiat has gone forth, and it is dead unless 
the body-snatchers en the other side of this House shall 
resurrect it, and give it galvanic life. 

" Mr. Chaxler : Will the gentleman yield to me ? 

"Mr. Garfield : I must decline to yield. 

"Mr. Ghanler : You asked a question of this side of 
the Eouse, and I merely desired to answer you. 

'•' .Mr. Gakeield : You may say to me that slavery is a 
divine institution ; you may prove to your own satisfac- 
tion from the word of God, perhaps, that slavery is a ben- 
eficienl institution. 1 will say to you that all this may be 
entirely satisfactory to your mind, but your beloved friend, 
slavery, is no mere. This is a world of bereavements and 
changes, and I announce to you that your friend has de- 
parted. Hang the drapery of mourning on its bier ! Go 
in long and solemn procession after its hearse, if you 
please, and shed your tears of sorrow over its grave, but I 
have no time to waste in listening to your tearful eulogy 
■ in' deceased. 

'• 1 come now to consider another point in this ques- 
tion. 1 hold it as a settled truth that the leaders of this 
rebellion can never live in peace in this Republic. I do 
ly it in any spiril of vind ictiveness, but as a matter 
of conviction. Ask the men who have seen them and met 
them in the darkness of battle and all the rigors of war- 
fare; they will tell you it can never be. I make, of 
course, an exception in favor of that sad array of men 
who have been forced or cajoled by their leaders into the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 803 

ranks and subordinate officers of the rebel army. I be- 
lieve a truce could be struck to-day between the rank and 
file of the hostile armies. I believe they could meet and 
shake hands together joyfully over returning peace, re- 
specting their mutual courage and manhood. But for the 
wicked men who brought on this rebellion, f or the wicked 
men who led them into the darkness, such a day can never 
come. Ask the representatives of Kentucky upon this 
floor, who know what the rebellion has been in their State, 
who know the violence and devastation that has swept 
over it, and they will tell you that all over that State 
neighbor has been slaughtered by neighbor, feuds fierce as 
human hate can make them have sprung up, and so long 
as revenge has an arm to strike they will never cease to 
strike if such men come back to dwell in their midst. 
This is true of every State over which the desolating tide 
of war has swept. If you would not inaugurate an exter- 
minating warfare, to continue while you and I and our 
children and children's children live, set it down at once 
that the leaders of this rebellion must be executed or 
banished from the Republic. They must follow the fate 
of the Tories of the Revolution. 

"I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the Army is a unit on 
these great questions ; and I must here be permitted to 
quote from one of nature's noblemen, a man from Vir- 
ginia, with the pride of the Old Dominion in his blood, 
but who could not be seduced from his patriotism — one 
who, amid the storm of war that surged against him at 
Chickamauga, stood firm as a rock in the sea —George H. 
Thomas. That man wrote a communication to the Secre- 
tary of War nearly a year ago, saying, in substance, for I 
quote from memory, ' I send you the inclosed paper from 
a subordinate officer ; I indorse its sentiments ; and I will 
add, that we can never make solid progress against the 
rebellion until we take more sweeping and severe meas- 
ures ; we must make these people feel the rigors of war, 
subsist our Army upon them, and leave their couutry so 



804 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

that there will be Little in it for them to desire.' Thus 
Bpoke a man who is very Ear from being what gentlemen 
upon the other side of the Souse are pleased to call an abo- 
litionist, or a norl hern Eanat ic ; and in Baying this he spoke 
the \ oice of i he Army. • 

•• }lr. Speaker, I am .surprised and amazed beyond 

are at what I have seen in this House. Having been 
so long with men who had but one thought upon these 
. n is passing strange to me to hear men 
talking of the old issues and discussions of a few years 
They forget that we live in actions and not in 
years. They forget that sometimes a nation may live a 
generation in a single year ; and the experience of the last 
three years lias been greater than that of centuries of quiet 
and peace. There are men who do not seem to realize 
thai we are at war. They do not seem to realize that this 
is a struggle for existence; a terrible fight of flint with 
flint, bayonet with bayonet, blood for blood. They still 
retain some hope that they can smile rebellion into peace. 
Tiic\ use terms strangely. In these modern days words 

lost their significance. If a man steals his thousands 
from the Treasury, he is not a thief; oh, no : he is a ' de- 
faulter. ' If a man hangs shackles on the limbs of a 
human being and drives him through life as a slave, it is 
not man-stealing, it is not even slavery, it is only 'another 
form of civilization.' We are using words in that strange 
There are public journals in New 5fork city, 1 am 
told, that never call this a rebellion — it is only a f civil 

Lotion,' a 'fraternal strife.' 1 had thought the days 

mthern brethren ' and ' wayward sisters ' bad gone 
by, but I find it here in the high noon of its glory. One 
would suppose from all we hear that war is gentle and 
graceful exercisi . to be indulged in a quiet and pleasant 
mantel-. I have lately seen a stanza from the nursery 

rhyme.- of England, which 1 commend to these gentle- 

ed patriots who propose to put down the rebellion 
w ith soft words and paper resolut ions i 






JAMES I. GAHV^ELp. 305 

" * There was an old man who Bald, How 
Shall I flee from this horrible cow? 

I will sit on the stile 

And continue to smile, 
Which may soften the heart of this cow.' 

" I tell you, gentlemen, the heart of this great rebel- 
lion cannot be softened by smiles. You cannot send 
commissioners down to Richmond, as the gentleman from 
New York [Mr. Feknando Wood] proposes, to smile 
away the horrible facts of this war. Not by smiles, but 
by thundering volleys, must this rebellion be met, and by 
that means alone. I am reminded of what Macaulay said 
in regard to the revolution in England. He said : 

" ' It is because we had a preserving revolution in the 
seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying 
revolution in the nineteenth. It is because we had free- 
dom in the midst of servitude that we have order in the 
midst of anarchy. For the authority of law, for the se- 
curity of property, for the peace of our streets, for the 
happiness of our homes, our gratitude is due, under Him 
who raises and pulls down nations at His pleasure, to 
the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William 
of Orange.' 

"Mr. Speaker, if we want a peace that is not a hollow 
peace we must follow that example and make thorough 
work of this war. We must establish freedom in the 
midst of servitude, and the authority of law in the midst 
of rebellion. We must fill the thinned ranks of our 
armies, assure them that a grateful and loving people are 
behind them, and they will go down against the enemy, 
bearing with them the majesty and might of a great na- 
tion. We must follow the march of the Army with a law 
that Avill sweep away the cause of the whole terrible revo- 
lution. The war began by proclamation, and it must end 
by proclamation. We can hold the insurgent States in 
military subjection half a century if need be, or until they 
are purged of their dross and poison, and leave them to 



Till-: MOQRAPBY OF 

Btaud up clean before the country, to come back with 
clean hands if they come at all. 1 want to see in all those 
State- tin- men who have foughl and suffered for the 
truth tilling those fields on which they pitched their tents. 
1 want to see them, like old Kaspar of Blenheim, on the 
Bummer evenings, with their children upon their knees, 
and pointing out the spot when- brave men fell and mar- 
ble commemorates it. Let no breath of treason be whis- 
1 want no man there, like one from 
my own State, who oame before the great struggle in 
1 gia and gave us his views of peace. He came as the 
friend of Vallandigham, the man for whom the gentleman 
on the other side of the House from my State worked and 
d.. We were on the eve of the great battle. I said to 
him, * Yon wish to make Mr. Vallandigham Governor of 
Ohio. Why?' 'Because, in the first place,' using the 
language of the gentleman from New York [Mr. l'i:u- 
NANiHi Wood,] 'you cannot subjugate the South, and we 
propose to withdraw without trying it any further. In 
the next place, we do not want anything to do with an 
abolition war. and will not give one dollar for that pur- 
Remember, gentlemen, what occurred on the con- 
scription bill this morning. 'To-morrow/' I continued, 
' we 1 1 1 ; i \ be engaged in a death struggle with the rebel 
army that confronts us, and is daily increasing. Where 
is the sympathy of your party? Do you want us beaten, 
or Bragg beaten ?' He answered they had no interesl in 
fighting, thai thej did not believe in lighting. 

•• Mr. Noble. A question right here. 

'• Mr. G \t:t it.i.n. I cannot yield : I have no time. He 
was the agenl senl by the copperhead Secretary of State 
to dietribute election blanks to the army of the Cumber- 
land. 

" M r. Noble. A single quesl ion. 

' M i'. <• '. t;t i ELD. I have no t iuie to spare. 

• Mr. Noblk. 1 want to ask the gentleman if he knows 

that Mr. Griffiths has made a queBtion Of veracity with 



JAMJS8 -!. GABF1ELD. 30? 

him by a positive denial of the alleged conversation pub- 
lished in the Cincinnati Enquirer. 

" Mr. Gakfield. No virtuous denials in the Cincin- 
nati Enquirer can alter the facts of this conversation, 
which was heard by a dozen officers. 

"I asked him further, 'How would it affect your 
party if we should crush the rebels in this battle, and 
utterly destroy them ? ' ' We would probably lose votes 
by it.' ' IIow would it affect your party if we should be 
beaten ?' 'It would probably help us in votes.' 

" That, gentlemen, is the kind of support the Army 
is receiving in what should be the house of its friends. 
This, gentlemen, is the kind of support these men — some 
of them — are inclined to give this country and its Army 
in this terrible struggle. I hasten to make honorable ex- 
ceptions. I know there are honorable gentlemen on the 
other side who do not belong to that category, and I am 
proud to acknowledge them as my friends. But I say 
that the effect of what the majority of them is doing will 
tend to pull down the fabric of our Government by aiding 
their friends over the border to do it. Their friends, I 
say, for when the Ohio election was about' coming off in 
the army at Chattanooga there was more anxiety in the 
rebel camp than in our own. The pickets had talked face 
to face, and made daily inquiry how the election in Ohio 
was going. And at midnight of the 13th of October, 
when the telegraphic news was flashed down to us, and an- 
nounced to the army that the Union had sixty thousand 
majority in Ohio, there arose a shout all along the line 
on that rainy midnight from every tent, which rent the 
skies with jubilees, and sent despair to the hearrs of those 
men beyond our lines who were 'waiting and watching 
across the border.' It told them their colleagues, their 
sympathizers, their friends, I had almost said their emis- 
saries, had failed to sustain themselves in turning the 
tide against our friends in the contest. And from that 
hour, but not till that hour, the army had felt safe from 
the enemy behind it. 



308 THE .aioaiiAi'iiy Off 

•• i deprecate these apparently partisan remarks; it 
Imit > Jin- to make them j but it hurls me more to know 
they are true. I would nut make them, but that 1 wish 
to unmask the pretext that we are working along all in a 
body for the rigorous prosecution of the war and the 
maintenance of the Government. I cannot easily forget 
the treatmenl the conscription bill met this morning. 
Even the few men in the Army who voted for Yallandig- 
ham wrote on the hack of their tickets 'Draft, draft/ 
That was the voice of the Army. 

" I conclude by returning once more to the resolution 
before us. Let no weak sentiments of misplaced sympathy 
deter us from inaugurating a measure which will cleanse 
our nation and make it the fit home of freedom and glo- 
rious mauhood. Let us not despise the severe Avisdom of 
our revolutionary fathers, when they served their genera- 
tion in a similar way. Let the Republic drive from its 
soil the traitors that have conspired against its life, as 
Gk>d and His angels drove Satan and his host from heaven. 
He was n<>t too merciful to be just, and to hurl down in 
chains and everlasting darkness the ' traitor angel ' who 
rebelled against him." 




jd^j. G-J1F_FIEL(2> <PI?E<P£IlIJf@ FOOQ FOR HEI? 
HUS§jL}JQ. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



311 



CHAPTER XIII. 



GARFIELD 6 CAREER IN THE THIRTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS. 
INDEPENDENCE. 



HIS 



On all proper occasions, in Congress and ont of it, 
G-eneral Garfield combated the political heresy known 
as " State Sovereignty," or " State Supremacy,' 1 the evil 
root from which sprang all the woes which the nation 
suffered from the scourge of Civil War. On one occasion 
(March 31, 1864), whilst advocating the construction of 
a railway across New Jersey, by authority of the National 
Government, to facilitate and cheapen the transmission of 
the mails, the troops and the military supplies of the 
government, he incidentally gave his views of " State Su- 
premacy," in a few sententious and convincing sentences. 

The Camden and Amboy Railway Company, a huge 
and grinding monopoly, had for years exercised a con- 
trolling political influence in the State of New Jersey ; so 
much so, that the commonwealth was sometimes called the 
" State of Camden and Amboy." The proposition to 
build a railway that might interfere with the profits of 
the monopoly, aroused the opposition of the railway com- 
pany, and the Governor of New Jersey (Joel Parker) 
issued an absurd proclamation, in which he assumed 
the superiority of his State to the United States. He 
asked : 

12 



TOR BlOQRAPHT "/' 

" Would the proposed action of Congress, if consum- 
mated, affect the pecuniary interests of the State, and 
chiefly, would such action* infringe upon the sovereignty 
of the State? . . . New Jersey is & sovereign State, 

and it is our duty, by every lawful means, to protect and 
defend her 8QV6T eig nty j and to transmit, unimpaired, to 
posterity, all her rights as they were received by her from 
our fathers." 

Tho governor closed his proclamation with a eovert 
threat, saying : 

■• Let it be distinctly understood by those who would 
inflict an indignity upon our State, that while New Jer- 
sey will comply with every legal obligation, and will re- 
spect and protect the rights of all, she will not permit 
any infringement of her rights without resorting to every 
lawful means to prevent it." 

Commenting on this proclamation. General Garfield 
said : 

" Consult the elementary text-book of law, and, re- 
fresh your recollection of the definition of 'sovereignty.' 
Blackstone says, of the sovereignty of nations, ' there is 
and must be, in all of them, a supreme, irresistible, abso- 
lute, uncontrolled authority, in which the jura summi 
imperii, or rights of sovereignty, reside.' Do these ele- 
belong to any State of this Republic ? 

•• Sovereignty has the right to declare war. Can New 
Jersey declare war? It lias the right to concludo peace. 
Can New Jersey conclude peace? Sovereignty has the 
righl to coin money. If the legislature of New Jersey 
should authorize and command one of its citizens to coin 
a half dollar, that man, if he made it, though it should 
-olid silver, would he locked up in a felon's cell for 
the crime of counterfeiting the coin of tho real sovereign. 



.JAHh's I. Q Mi FIELD. 313 

"A sovereign has the right to make treaties with for- 
eign nations. Has New Jersey the right to make treaties? 
Sovereignty is clothed with the right to regulate com- 
merce with foreign nations. New Jersey has no such 
right. Sovereignty has the right to put ships on the 
ocean and the high seas. Should a ship set sail under 
the authority of New Jersey, it would he seized as a smug- 
gler, forfeited and sold. Sovereignty has a flag, but, 
thank God, New Jersey has no flag ; Ohio has no flag. 
No loyal State fights under the ' Lone Star,' the ' Rattle- 
snake,' or the ' Palmetto Tree ;' no loyal State of this 
Union has any flag but the banner of beauty and glory, 
the flag of the Union. These are the indispensable ele- 
ments of sovereignty. New Jersey has not one of them." 

In reply to the remark that New Jersey was a loyal 
State, and had sent her citizens into the army, he said : 

" They are not fighting for New Jersey, but for the 
Union, and when it is once restored, I don't believe these 
men will fight for the Camden and Amboy monopoly. 
Their hearts have been enlarged, and there are patriotic 
men of New Jersey, in the army and at home, who are 
groaning under this tyrannical monopoly, and they come 
here and ask us to strike off the shackles that bind them, 
and I hold it to be the high right and duty of this body 
to strike off their fetters and let them go free." 

• The disloyal men in Congress were handled by General 
Garfield without mercy. He had no patience with "Cop- 
perheads." In the Spring of 1864, Alexander Long, a 
Democratic member of Congress from Ohio, delivered an 
ultra-peace -harangue on the floor of the House, in which 
he proposed the recognition of the independence of the 
Southern Confederacy. When he sat down, all eyes were 
instinctively turned to the voung Boanerges from the 



314 Tin: tiiOQRAPHY OP 

Bame State. Garfield al once arose and said,- with great 
calmness at first : 

•• Mr. Chairman : — I should be obliged to you if you 
would direct the sergeant-at-arms to bring a white flag 

and plant it in the aisle between myself and my colleague 
who has just addressed you. 

" I recollect on one occasion when two great armies 
stood face to face, under a white flag just planted, I ap- 
pronched a company of men dressed in the uniform of the 
rebel Confederacy, and reached out my hand to one of the 
number, and told him I respected him as a brave man. 
Though he wore the emblems of his disloyalty and trea- 
son, still underneath his vestments I beheld a brave and 
honest soul. 

" I would reproduce that scene here this afternoon. I 
say, were there such a flag of truce — but God forgive me 
if I should do it under any other circumstances'! — I would 
reach out this right hand and ask that gentleman to take 
it, because I honor his bravery and honesty. I believe 
what ha-< just fallen from his lips is the honest sentiment 
of his heart, and in uttering it he has made a new epoch 
in the history of this war ; he has done a new thing un- 
der the sun ; he has done a brave thing. It is braver 
than to face cannon and musketry, and I honor him for 
his candor and frankness. 

•• But now I ask you to take away the flag of truce, 
and I will go back inside the Union lines and speak of 
what hi,' has done. I am reminded of it by a distin- 
guished character in ' Paradise Lost.' When he had re- 
belled against the glory of God, and 'led away a third 
pari of Heaven's sons conjured against the Highesl ;' when, 
after terrible battles, in which mountains and hills were 
hurled by each contending host 'with Ejaculations dire ;' 
when, at last, the leader and his host were hurled 'nine 
tune- tli" ha! measures 'lay and night,' and after 

the terrible fall lay stretched prone on the burning lake, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 815 

Satan lifted up his shattered hulk, crossed the abyss, 
looked down into Paradise, and soliloquizing, said : 

" ' Which way I fly is hell ; myself am hell V It seems 
to me he expressed the very sentiment to which you have 
just listened ; uttered by one no less brave, malign, and 
fallen. This man gathers up the meaning of this great 
contest, the philosophy of the moment, the prophecies of 
the hour, and in sight of the paradise of victory and 
peace, utters them all in this wail of terrible despair, 
' Which way I flv is hell.' He ought to add, ' Myself am 
hell !' 

"Mr. Chairman, I am reminded by the occurrences of 
this afternoon of two characters in the war of the Revolu- 
tion, as compared with two others in the war of to-day. 

" The first was Lord Fairfax, who dwelt near the 
Potomac, a few miles from us. When the great contest 
was opened between the mother country and the colonies, 
Lord Fairfax, after a protracted struggle with his own 
heart, decided that he must go with the mother country. 
He gathered his mantle about him and went over grandly 
and solemnly. 

" There was another man who cast in his lot with the 
struggling colonists, and continued with them till the war 
was well nigh ended. In an hour of darkness that just 
preceded the glory of the morning, he hatched the trea- 
son to surrender forever all that had been gained to the 
enemies of his country. Benedict Arnold was the man ! 

" Fairfax and Arnold find their parallel in the struggle 
of to-day. 

" When this war began many good men stood hesitat- 
ing and doubting what they ought to do. Robert E. Lee 
sat in his house across the river here, doubting and de- 
laying, and going off at last almost tearfully to join the 
army of his State. He reminds one in some respects of 
Lord Fairfax, the stately royalist of the Revolution. 

"But now, when tens of thousands of brave souls 
have gone up to God under the shadow of the flag ; when 
thousands more, maimed and shattered in the contest, are 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

tadly awaiting the deliverance of death ; now, when three 
years of terrific warfare have raged over us ; when our 
armies have pushed the Rebellion back over mountains 
and rivers, and crowded it into narrow limits, until a wall 
of fire girds it ; now, when the uplifted hand of a majes- 
tic people is about to hurl the bolts of its conquering 
power upon the Rebellion : now, in the quiet of this hall, 
hatched in the lowest depths of a similar dark treason, 
there rises a Benedict Arnold and proposes to surrender 
all up, body and spirit, the Nation and the Flag, its 
genius and its honor, now and forever, to the accursed 
traitors to our country ! And that proposition comes — 
God forgive and pity my beloved State ! — it comes from a 
citizen of the time-honored and loyal Commonwealth of 
Ohio! 

"I implore you, brethren, in this House, to believe 
that not many births ever gave pangs to my mother State 
such as she suffered when that traitor was born ! I beg 
you not to believe that on the soil of that State another 
anch growth has ever deformed the face of nature and 
darkened the light of God's day. [An audible whisper, 
' Vallandigham.'] Rut, ah! 1 am reminded that there 
are other such. My zeal and love for Ohio have carried 
lie' too far. 1 retract. I remember that only a few 
since a political convention met at the capital of my 
State, and almost decided to select from just Mich material 
a representative for the Democratic party in the coming 
contesl ; ami to-day what claim to be a majority of the 
Democracy of that State say they have been cheated, or 
they would have made thai choice. I, therefore, Badlytake 
back the boas! I firs! uttered in behalf of my native State. 

"But, !-. I will forgel Stated. We have something 
greater than States and State pride to talk of hereto-day. 
All personal or State feeling aside, 1 ask you what is the 

proposition which the enemy of his country has just made ? 

What ie it \ 

•• For the firsi time in the historj of this contest it is 
proposed in this hall, to give up the struggle, to abandon 



JAMES A. OARFIELD. 811 

the war, and let treason run riot through the land ! 1 
will, if I can, dismiss feeling from my heart, and try to 
consider only what bears upon the logic of the speech to 
which we have just listened." 

After a few words concerning; the insauc proposition 
to permit a dissolution of the Union and to recall the 
army, General Garfield said : 

u Suppose the policy of the gentleman were adopted 
to-day. Let the order go forth ! Sound the ' recall ' on 
your bugles, and let it ring forth from Texas to the for 
Atlantic, and tell the armies to come back. Call the vic- 
torious legions back over the battle-fields of blood, forever 
now disgraced. Call them back over the territory which 
they have conquered. Call them back, and let the min- 
ions of secession chase them with derision and jeers us 
they come. And then tell them that that man across the 
aisle, from the free State of Ohio, gave birth to the mon- 
strous proposition. 

"Mr. Chairman, if such a word should be sent forth 
through the armies of the Union, the wave of terrible 
vengeance that would sweep back over this land could 
novcr find a parallel in the records of history. Almost 
in the moment of final victory the 'recall' is sounded by 
a craven people not deserving freedom ! We ought, every 
man, to be made a slave, should we sanction such a senti- 
ment." 

This speech, delivered on the spur of the moment 
and without the least preparation, surprised the House. 
Members on both sides and tho occupants of the galleries 
listened with rapt attention. The silence in the hall was 
almoRt painful. From that moment General Garfield 
stood among his brethren in the front rank of Republican 



■MS TUB BIOGRAPHY OF 

leaders. H«' was acknowledged to be the readiest and 
most brilliant speaker in the House of Representatives. 

Another remarkable illustration of General Garfield's 
great readiness in an emergency, his wonderful memory, 
and bis almost unlimited command of language, was given 
«>n the memorable occasion when President Johnson de- 
termined to observe the first anniversary of Mr. Lincoln's 
death by closing the Departments. To show his contempt 
for Congress, with whom he was then quarrelling, John- 
son did not notify them of his intention. Speaker Colfax 
heard of it about fifteen minutes before the time of the 
assembling of Congress. He hastened to Garfield's com- 
mittee room and said : 

" I desire you to move that the House shall adjourn 
as a mark of respect to the memory of our martyred Presi- 
dent. I give you just fifteen minutes to prepare some 
suitable remarks." 

Garfield was left alone, and at the end of the fifteen 
minutes he was in his seat. "When the last words of the 
preceding day's proceedings had been read by the clerk, 
he arose and said: 

"Mr. Speaker: I move that this House do now ad- 
journ, and upon that motion I desire to say a few words: 

••This day will be Badly memorable so long as this 
nation .-hall endure, which God grant may he till the 'last 
,-vllahlu of recorded time,' when the volume of human 
history shall be Bealed up and delivered to the omnipo- 
tent Judge. In all future time, on the recurrence of this 
day, 1 doubl uol thai the citizens of this Republic will 
meet in Bolemn ass< mblj to reflect on the life and charac- 
ter of Abraham Lincoln, and the awful tragic event of 

April 14th, 1865 — an event unparalleled in the history of 

nations. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 319 

"It is eminently proper that this House should this 
day place upon its record a memorial of that event. The 
last five years have been marked by wonderful develop- 
ments of individual character. Thousands of our people 
before unknown to fame have taken their places in history 
crowned with immortal honors. In thousands of humble 
homes are dwelling heroes and patriots whose names shall 
never die. But greatest among all these great develop- 
ments were the character and fame of Abraham Lincoln, 
whose loss the Nation still deplores. His character is 
aptly described in the words of England's great laureate, 
as he traces the step upward of some 

" ' Divinely gifted man, 

Whose life in low estate began, 
And on a simple village green, 

Who breaks his birth's invidious bars, 
And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance, 

And grapples with his evil stars : 
Who makes by force his merit known, 

And lives to clutch the golden keys 

To mould a mighty state's decrees, 
And shape the whisper of the throne ; 
And moving up from high to higher, 

Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope, 

The pillar of a people's hope, 
The centre of a world's desire.' 

"Such a life and character will be treasured forever 
as the sacred possession of the American people and of 
mankind. In the great drama of the Rebellion there were 
two acts. The first was the war, with its battles, its 
sieges, victories and defeats, its sufferings and tears. That 
act was closing one year ago to-night, and just as the cur- 
tain was rising upon new events, the evil spirit of Rebel- 
lion, in the fury of despair, nerved and directed the hand 
of the assassin to strike down the chief character in both 
acts. It was no one man who killed Abraham Lincoln. 
It was the embodied s.pirit of treason and slavery, in- 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

spired with fearful ami despairing hate, that struck him 
down in the moment of the Nation's supremest joy. 

•• Ah. mi-, there arc times in the history of men and 
nations when they stand so near the veil that separates 
mortals and immortals, time from eternity, and men 
from their God, thai they can almosf bear the breathings 
and feel the pulsations of the heart of the Infinite. 
Through Buch a time has this Nation passed. When two 
hundred and fifty thousand brave spirits passed from the 
field of honor through that thin veil to the presence of 
God, and when at last its parting folds admitted the mar- 
tyred President to the company of the dead heroes of the 
Republic, the Nation stood so near the veil that the whis- 
pers of God were heard by the children of men. 

"Awe-stricken by his voice, the American people knelt 
ni tearful reverence, and made a solemn covenant with 
God and each other that this Nation should be saved from 
its enemies ; that all its glories should be restored, ami mi 
the ruin- of slavery and treason the temples of freedom 
and justice should be built and stand forever. It remains 
for us, consecrated by that great event, and under that 
covenant with God, to keep the faith, to go forward in 
the great work until it shall be completed. Following 
the had of fchai great man, and obeying the high behests 
of ( .0,1, let u.- remember 

•' ' lie has soanded forih his trumpel thai Shall never call retreat ; 
He I : tli' hearts of men before His judgment seat ; 

B< Rwift, iuv soul, to answer Him ; be jubilant, my feet, 
[Tor God is marching on.' " 

It i> said that he had not read the linos he quoted 

from Tennyson in fifteen years, and yet he misquoted hut 

one word. 

In the early Summer of L864, President Lincoln, inade 
• dingly anxious by the unpromising aspect of public 

affairs, took the unusual step of going to the Capitol to con- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 321 

fer with the Committee on Military Affairs and the Com- 
mittee on Ways and Means. He gave ihem information 
which he dared not tell the public, namely, that the army 
then numbered seven hundred and fifty thousand men, 
and that in one hundred days three hundred and eighty 
thousand men would be discharged by the expiration of 
their terms of enlistment. 

Mr. Lincoln declared that unless the places of the 
three hundred and eighty thousand men could be filled 
immediately, not only could the war not be prosecuted 
with any vigor, but that Sherman must be recalled from 
Georgia and Grant from the Peninsula. 

Some of the Republican members, anxious to retain 
their seats in Congress by re-election in the Fall, remon- 
strated with Mr. Lincoln, reminding him that his own re- 
election as well as_theirs might be imperilled by adopting 
measures he had proposed. The bare mention of this 
selfish consideration filled the patriot's soul with right- 
eous indignation. Rising from his seat, his tall figure 
appearing taller than ever, he said : " Gentlemen, it is 
not necessary that you or I should be re-elected, but it is 
necessary that I should put down the rebellion. If you 
will give me this law, I will put it down before my suc- 
cessor takes his seat." He then left the room. 

A bill embodying the ideas of the President was soon 
reported to the House. There was strong opposition to 
it, and on June 21 (1804), by a vote of one hundred to 
fifty, the first section was struck out. After further de- 
bate, General Garfield gave strength to the friends of the 
measure by moving to strike out the third and fourth sec- 
tions of the bill, saying : 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

•• The bill, as my colleague on the committee has said, 
uted as a whole ; it is a measure that had no 
value in it, except the last two sections, unless taken as a 
whole. The heart is cut out of it, and the head cut off, 
and, with the exception of those two sect ions, I have not 
only no desire that it should pass, but I believe the man- 
gled trunk would be a deformity, and would seriously 
injure the efficiency of the present law. We come before 
the house to say that the President had informed us, what 
our own examination of the state of the country also led 
us to believe, that the government is in want of men, and 
not of money, to fill the ranks of its army ; that the 
law we have given to the President and the War Depart- 
ment has in the main failed to secure the requisite re-en- 
forcements. 

"It is no longer a question that we cannot retain the 
commutation clause of the Enrollment act and at the same 
time fill up the army so as to supply the waste of battle. 

" Gentlemen, this Congress must sooner or later meet 
the issue face to fate, and I believe the time will soon 
come, if it lias not now come, when we must give up the 
war o: - give up the commutation. 1 believe the men and 
the I hat shall finally refuse to strike out the com- 

mutation clause, but retain it in its full force as it now is, 
will substantially vote to abandon the war. And lam not 
ready (■> believe, I will not believe, that the Thirty-eighth 
I - has come to that conclusion. 

" When (he officers to whom you have committed the 

safety of the nation, ask for adequate instruments to carry 

on th'' war. when they tell you the instruments you have 

them are not adequate, as the President and the 

tary of War tell you, as the history of the late draft 
and the one DOW in progress tells you ; w hen their demands 
are made and reasons given, if you refuse to grant the aid 

tiny need, how have you any right to hope either success 
tot) ? Bui if you will not give the needed help, at 
!■ i-t preserve intact the law you have already made/' 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 325 

A few days later, when the measure was again before 
the House, General Garfield made in its favor one of the 
strongest speeehes, it is believed, that he ever delivered in 
Congress. After reviewing the action of the House on 
the subject in a few words, he said : 

"' It has never been my policy to conceal a truth merely 
because it is unpleasant. It may be well to smile in the 
face of danger, but it is neither well nor wise to let danger 
approach unchallenged and unannounced. A brave nation, 
like a brave man, desires to see and measure the perils 
which threaten it. It is the right of the American people 
to know the necessities of the Republic when they are 
called upon to make sacrifices for it. It is this lack of 
confidence in ourselves aud the peojole, this timid waiting 
for events to control us when they should obey us, that 
makes men oscillate between hope and fear ; now in the 
sunshine of the hill-tops, and now in the gloom and shadows 
of the valley. To such men the bulletin which heralds 
success in the army gives exultation and high hope ; the 
evening dispatch announcing some slight disaster to our 
advancing columns brings gloom and depression. Hope 
rises and falls by the accidents of war, as the mercury of 
the thermometer changes by the accidents of heat and cold. 
Let us rather take for our symbol the sailor's barometer, 
which faithfully forewarns him of the tempest, and gives 
him unerring promise of serene skies and peaceful seas." 

He then stated the grounds for anxiety and appre- 
hension, lie gave a condensed and vivid statement of 
the efforts and sacrifices made by England in the great 
wars with Napoleon ; next he spoke of the struggles of 
the Revolutionary fathers in the war for Independence ; 
he drew a further lesson in courage, thoroughness, and 
devotion from the very rebels who were striving to de- 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

stroy the Government. Ee then assorted tho right of the 

Nation to the money of the citizen, saving: "Coercion 
accompanies the tax-gatherer at every step." lie also 
ted her right to the citizen's service: " Every nation 
under heaven claims the right to order its citizens into 
the ranks as soldiers." In conclusion he said : 

•1 ask gentlemen who oppose this repeal, why they 
desire to make it easy for citizens to escape from military 
duty ? Is it a great hardship to serve one's country? Is 
it a disgraceful service ? Will you, by your action here, 
say to t he soldiers in the field, ' This is a disreputable 
business ; you have been deceived ; you have been caught 
in the trap, and we will make no law to put anybody else 
in it?" Do you thus treat your soldiers in the field? 
They are proud of their voluntary service, and, if there 
be one wish of the army paramount to all others, one mes- 
sage more earnest than all the others which they send back 

u, it is that you will aid in filling up their battle- 
thinned ranks by a draft which will compel lukewarm citi- 
. who prate against the war, to go into the field. 
They ask that you will not expend large bounties in pay- 
ing men of third-rate patriotism, while they went with no 
other bounty than that love of country to which they gave 
their young lives a free offering, but that you will compel 
eloventh-hour men to lake their chances in the held 
beside them. Let US grant their request, and, by a steady 
and persistent effort, we -hall, in the end, be it near or 

te, be it in one year or ten, crown the Nation with 

\ ictofy ami end tiring peace. - ' 

To Genera] Garfield is chiefly due the credit of con- 
vincing the majority of the House of the righteousness, 
risdotn, and the absolute necessity of the measure 

proposed. The bill was passed, the army was soon re- 



J A. WES A. GARFIELD. 327 

cruited by a draft of live hundred thousand men, and the 
promised " victory and enduring peace " followed. 

It was at about this time that General Garfield's 
honesty of purpose, candor, boldness, self-reliance, and 
independence of spirit was conspicuously illustrated. lie 
was then young, of ardent temperament, with his vision 
constantly fixed upon right, justice, and his country's 
safety and honor, and seemed never to think of himself 
when dealing with great public matters. His course on 
the "bounty," the ''draft" and " commutation " alien- 
ated from him many of his constituents, and several of 
the most prominent men of his district joined in address- 
ing a letter to him, withdrawing their confidence and 
demanding his resignation. 

Did General Garfield yield his conscience or his judg- 
ment to the keeping of others ? Not at all. He replied, 
in vigorous but courteous language, that he had acted ac- 
cording to his views of the needs of the country ; that he 
was sorry his judgment did not agree with theirs ; but 
that, between their opinion and his own, he was compelled 
to follow his own ; and that he expected to live long 
enough to have them all confess that he was right and 
they were wrong. He did not wait long for that result. 
He very soon received letters from all of them, express- 
ing regret because of their censure. 

Another instance of his courage, candor and hide 
pendence may be cited. Benjamin Wade and other radi- 
cal men of Garfield's district became dissatisfied with what 
they chose to regard as undue tardiness and timidity of 
President Lincoln in dealing with the rebellion in its first 
throes of dissolution. They issued a manifesto of censure. 
It was expected that General Garfield either wrote the 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

docuineut or was i.o Bympathy with it. When the con- 
vention met to nominate his successor in Congress, some 
of the members of it demanded an explanation from him. 
IK' entered the Convention, and, in a speech of half an 
hour, which would have dug the political grave of any 
other man, he gave an explanation, which no one who 
heard it ever forgot. 

lit- told the Convention that he had not written the 
letter, but that he had only one regret, and that was, that 
there was a necessity for its appearance. lie approved it ; 
defended the motives and action of its authors ; asserted 
his right to independence of thought and action, and 
told the delegates that if they did not want a free agent 
for their representatives, they had better find another 
m;m t for he did not care to servo them. He then left 
the hall, the members sitting for a few minutes in blank 
amazement. 

A- Garfield reached the egress from the building, he 
heard a great noise in the Convention Hall. He sup- 
posed it to bo the signal of the unanimous rejection 
of his name as a nominee. Quite the contrary. No sooner 
had he left the room than a delegate from Ashtabula rose 
and addressed the Convention in a few words, lie said : 

" l'»v the eternal! a man who can face a convention in 
that manner, so hold and defiant, m support of principle 
and his own convictions and dignity, ought to be nomi- 
nated by acclamation." 

Garfield's boldness had, as we have observed, stunned 
1 onvention for a moment. The Ashtabula member 
nominated him. find almost everj member of the Conven- 
tion, charmed by hifl arguments and lofty sentiments, and 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 389 

filled with admiration of his courage and independence, 
voted " aye " when the question of his nomination was 
put. Governor Todd closed the meeting with the re- 
mark : 

"A district that will allow a young fellow liko Garfield 
to tweak its nose and cuff its ears in that manner deserves 
to have him saddled on it for life." 

The news of this action of the nominee and of the 
Convention soon spread over the "Western Reserve, and 
was hailed with plaudits. It is said that he met Air. 
Wade a day or two afterwards — a blunt, independent and 
brave old man, who had fought many hard battles for the 
abolition of slavery — who said to him abruptly : 

"Look here, do you know you did a very bold thing 
in that Convention the other day ?" 

"It was my duty, Mr. Wade, to say what I did," said 
Garfield. "I believed you and Mr. Davis to be in the 
right, and I could not conscientiously do otherwise." 

"Bosh!" said the old man, with an expletive a little 
profane, which the Recording Angel may justly have 
'blotted out,' as in Uncle Toby's case. "It was brave, 
I tell you ; as brave as Caesar. Why, not one fellow in a 
dozen but would have given Davis and I the go-by. All 
you had to do was to go in and tetcr a little before the 
Convention, and they -would have promised in advance to 
renominate you. But you didn't do it ; devil the bit did 
you do it. You took the bull by the horns like a man, 
and told the Convention it was wrong, and I say it was 
brave in you to do so. 

"Now, mind you, Garfield, you have got that district, 
and they won't fool with you any more. The people of 
Ohio like a bold and honest man, and they have found 
one in you, and they ain't going to give you up soon. 



330 THE BIOQRAPRT OF 

Just you go ahead ; thoy know you arc worth a dozen 
Umber-jacks, and they will stick by you. It's a clear case 
you won't turn for anybody ; yoo had the best chance to 
turn the other day before thai Convention you will ever 
have, and you didn't do it — no, you didn't do it. The 
people hate a trimmer, and I tell you your action at that 
Convention has given the men and women of your district 
a now idea of you. As for me," added Mr. "Wade, the 
tears starting to his eyes, "I won't say how much I am 
obliged to you for the way you stood by me, but I shall 
never forget it, never, sir, while I live on this earth.'' 

Genera] Garfield was re-elected to Congress by nearly 
twelve thousand majority. He was received with hearty 
welcomes and congratulations when he entered Congress 
at the Second Session in December. He was ever busy in 
duties, ever diligent in investigation, and no subject ever 
engaged his attention without being so thoroughly analyzed 
and sifted that he became perfectly master of it. The 
limited space occupied with this biography precludes the 
possibility of following General Garfield in all his con- 
gressional life. It would require a volume to do so. 
Wo may only touch upon the most salient points in that 
remarkable career. 

The Currency Question, next to that of the war, de- 
manded treatment at the hands of most profound states- 
manship. It i- an abstruse subject, with really no scien- 
tific formula as its basis, and little understood by most 
of those who, through business transactions or study, are 
supposed t" be most familiar with it. Like the science of 
medicine, it is subjected to so many and varied conditions 
that much of Currency wisdom afloat in the world is 
mere theory, which is often proved to be fallacious when 

subjected to minute application.-. It must be treated on 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 331 

the basis of broad goneral principles which cannot be 
changed, and dealt with in particular oases as circum- 
stances may require. 

General Garfield made the Currency the subject of his 
most earnest and careful study, for he clearly perceived 
that finance, in all its phases, was a most vital question in 
tho exigency of war, for the consideration of the patriot 
and statesman. He appeared to form lucid and wise 
views of this as well as other subjects, almost as if by 
intuition ; and his utterances always commanded the 
attention of members of Congress as well as the spectators 
in the galleries, in a degree seldom equalled by any other 
speaker. An illustration of his view on the Currency may 
be found in the extracts from his speech, on pages 399- 
428, inclusive, of this volume. 

The subject of finance occupied the attention of Con- 
gress, a large portion of the time during General Garfield's 
career in Congress. He had entered that body when Mr. 
Chase was the Secretary of the Treasury. That wise states- 
man and financier had inaugurated a financial policy 
somewhat untried before, and very bold to meet the sud- 
den exigency of war, began with a depleted treasury. He 
needed prompt legislation, directed by wisdom and 
patriotism, to enable him to carry out his policy. The 
views of General Garfield accorded "with his own, and he 
was ever found the persistent and efficient champion of 
financial measures for sustaining the government, not only 
during the administration of Mr. Chase, but of his suc- 
cessors. 

As we have seen, there was, from the beginning, a dis- 
loyal peace party, of which a more radical faction seemed 
to be lying in wait to use every opportunity to embarrass 



BM THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

tKeii government, in its efforts to suppress the great 
insurrection tad rebellion. No man in or out of Congress 
watched these half -concealed enemies of the Republic 
with greater vigilance than General Garfield, or more 

promptly and completely exposed their machinations, in 
every form, whether in overt acts, or by the insidious 
diffusion of the views of political heresy. 

Concerning the topic of the relation of the States to 
the National Government, in the discussion of which 
there was much political heresy expressed, in some form, 
Garfield's views are regarded as specially sound. They 
were thoroughly sustained by historical facts. He was 
ever ready to enunciate his views on any other subject, 
and as ready to support them by an army of authorities 
and by uiHiuestioned facts. As these heresies still exist, in 
a naif-fossilized form, in our national politics, it may be 
profitable, especially to the young reader of this volume, 
to give BOme of the views of General Garfield, so clearly 
expressed in the following selections from his speech 
delivered in Congress early in the session of 1S66, in 
which he defined a State. 

" The, word ' State,' " said General Garfield, " as it has 
been used by gentlemen in this discussion, has two mean- 
. bb perfectly distinct as though different words had 
been used to express them. The confusion arising from 
applying th.' same word to two different and dissimilar 
objects, baa had very much to do with the diverse conclu- 
sions which gentlemen have reached. They have given us 
the definition of a * State' in the contemplation of public or 
international law, and have at once applied that definition, 
and the conclusions based upon it, to the States of the 
American Union, and the effects of war upon them. Let 



JAMES A. QARFIELD. 333 

us examine the two meanings of the word, and endeavor 
to keep them distiuct in their application to the questions 
before ns. 

" Phillimore, the great English publicist, says : ' For 
all the purposes of international law, a State (demos, civi- 
tas, volJc) may be denned to be a people permanently 
occupying a fixed territory, bound together by common 
laws, habits, and customs into one body politic, exercising, 
through the medium of an organized government, inde- 
pendent sovereignty and control over all persons and things 
within its boundaries, capable of making war and peace, 
and of entering into all international relations with the 
other communities of the globe.' (Phi Hi move's Interna- 
tional Zaw, vol. i. sec. 65.) 

" Substantially the same definition may be found in 
Grotius, book one, chapter one, section fourteen ; in Bur 
lamaqui, volume two, part one, chapter four, section nine ; 
and in Vattel, book one, chapter one. The primary point 
of agreement in all these authorities is that in contempla- 
tion of international law, a State is absolutely sovereign, 
acknowledging no superior on earth. In that sense the 
United States is a State, a sovereign State, just as Great 
Britain, France and Russia are States. 

" But what is the meaning of the word State as applied 
to Ohio or Alabama \ Is either of them a State in the 
sense of international law? They lack all the leading 
requisites of such a State. They are only the geogra- 
phical subdivisions of a State ; and though endowed by 
the people of the United States with the rights of local 
self-rrovernment, vet in all their external relations, their 
sovereignty is completely destroyed, being merged in the 



334 THE BIOQliM'UY OF 

supreme Federal Government. {HaUectfs International 
Law, Bection 16, page 71.) 

"Ohio* cannot make war: cannot conclude peace; 
eannot make a treaty with any foreign government; 
cannol even make a compact with her sister States ; cannot 
regulate commerce; cannot coin money; and has no flag. 
These indispensable attributes of sovereignty the State of 
Ohio does not possess, nor does any other State of the 
Union. We call them States for want of a better name. 
We sail them States, because the original thirteen had 
been so designated before the Constitution was formed ; 
but that Constitution destroyed all the sovereignty which 
those States were ever supposed to possess in reference to 
externa] affaire. 

" I submit) Air. Speaker, that the five great publicists, 
G-rotius, Puffendorf, Bynkershoek, Burlamaqui and Vattel, 
who have been so often ([noted in this debate, and all of 
whom wrote iie>re than a quarter of a century, and some 
nearly two centuries, before our Constitution was formed, 
can hardly he quoted as good authorities in regard to the 
nature and legal relationships of the component State- of 
the American Union. 

" Even my colleague from the Colnmhus district [Mr. 
Shellabarger], in his very able discussion of this question, 
spoke a< though a State of this Union was the same as a 
State in the sense of international law, with certain quali- 
idded. I think he must admit that nearly all the 
leading attributes of BUch a State are taken from it when 

it becomi the Union. 

• Several gentlemen, during this debate, have quoted 

veil-known doctrine of international law, 'that war 

annul- all existing compacts and treaties between belliger 



JAMES A. UMlFIRLt). 335 

exits;' and they have concluded, therefore, that our war 
has broken the Federal bond, and dissolved the Union. 
This would be true if the Rebel States were States in 
the sense of international law — if .our government were 
not a sovereign nation, but only a league between sover- 
eign States. 

" I oppose to this conclusion the unanswerable propo- 
sition that this is a nation ; that the Rebel States are not 
sovereign States, and, therefore, their failure to achieve 
independence was a failure to break the Federal bond — to 
dissolve the Union." 

On another phase of the same subject, — the suprem- 
acy of the States, — General Gariield was also sound and 
explicit, and was ever ready with undoubted facts and 
conclusive reasons to prove the falsity and absurdity of 
that political heresy which has wrought so much mischief 
in the past periods of our history. General Garfield 
touched upon this subject in his comments on the extra- 
ordinary proclamation of Governor Parker, of New Jersey, 
in passages quoted on page 312 of this volume. In a 
speech in January, 1865, in reply to his colleague from 
Ohio, George II. Pendleton, who had spoken strongly 
against the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, 
and in favor of the " constitutional guarantees " of the sys- 
tem of slavery, and of the supremacy of the States, General 
Garfield made a few brief but telling remarks on the 
latter topic. In the course of that speech, Pendleton 
had spoken of the National Constitution as a "compact 
of confederation," words -which present the concentrated 
formula of the doctrine of State sovereignty. In reference 
to that doctrine, Garfield said : 

" If I understand the gentleman, he holds that each 



THE BIOGBAPBY OF 

State is sovereign ; thai in their sovereign capacity, as the 

source and the fountain of power, the States, each for itself, 
ratified the constitution which the, convention had framed. 
What powers they did not grant, they reserved. They 
did not grant to the Federal Government the right to 
control the Bubjecl of slavery. That right still resides in 
the States severally. I Lence, no amendment of the Consti- 
tution by three-fourths of the States can legally affect 
slavery in the remaining fourth. Hence, no amendment 
by the modes pointed out in the Constitution can reach 
it. This, I believe, is a succinct and just statement of his 
argument. The whole question turns upon the sover- 
eignty of the States. Are they sovereign and independent 
now j "Were they ever so? I shall endeavor to answer/' 
General Garfield then went on to show by an appeal 
to the facts of history, and by incontrovertible argument, 
that "sovereignty" resides only with the People and not 
with the States. We may only present a few paragraphs 

of his speech, as follows : 

'•On the 21st day of June, 178S, our national sover- 
eignty was lodged, by the people, in the Constitution of 
the United States, where it still resides, and for its preser- 
vation our armies are today in the field. In all these 
of development, from colonial dependence to full- 
orbed nationality, the people, not the States, have been 

omnipotent. They have abolished, established, altered, 
and amended, ;is suited their sovereign pleasure. They 
made the Constitution. That great charter tells its own 
story be t : 

•••We. the peoph of the United States, in order to 
form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure do- 
inestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, pn - 



JAMES A. UAKF1EL1). 33« 

mote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty 
to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish 
this Constitution for the United States uf America.' 

u Not 'we, the sovereign States,' do enter into a league 
or form a '• compact of c&nfederation? . . In framing and 
establishing the Constitution, what restrictions were laid 
upon the people? Absolutely no human power beyond 
themselves. No barriers confined them but the laws of 
nature, the laws of God, their love of justice, and their 
aspirations for liberty. Over that limitless expanse they 
ranged at will, and out of such materials as their wisdom 
selected they built the stately fabric of our government, 
That Constitution, with its amendments, is the latest and 
the greatest utterance of American sovereignty. The 
hour is now at hand when that majestic sovereign, for the 
benignant purpose of securing still farther the ' blessings of 
liberty,' is about to put forth another oracle ; is about to 
declare that universal freedom shall be the supreme law of 
the land. Show me the power that is authorized to forbid 
it. . . . They made the Constitution what it is. They could 
have made it otherwise then ; they can make it otherwise 
now. . . . On the justice of the amendment itself no ar- 
guments are necessary. The reasons crowd in on every side. 
To enumerate them would be a work of superfluity. To 
me it is a matter of great surprise that gentlemen on the 
other side should wish to delay the death of slavery. I 
can only account for it on the ground of long-continued 
familiarity and friendship. I should be glad to hear them 
say of slavery, their beloved, as did the jealous Moor : 

•' ' Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.' 
13 



040 HIE BIOGRAPHY OF 

''Has she not betrayed and slain men enoughs Are 
they not strewn over a thousand kittle-fields? Is not this 
Moloch already gorged with the bloody feast? Its best 
friends know that its final honr is fast approaching. The 
avonging lp"!- are on its track. Their feet are not now, 
• •Id, shod with wool, f;.". - slow and stately stepping, 
but winged like Mercury's, to bear the swift message of 
vengeance. No human power can avert the final catas- 
trophe. 

" 1 didnot intend, Mr. Speaker, ever again to address 
the House on the subject of slavery. I had hoped we 
might, without a struggle, at once and forever remove it 
from the theatre of American politics, and turn our 
thoughts to those other and larger fields now opening bo- 
fore ns. But when I saw tho bold and determined efforts 
put forth in this House yesterday for its preservation,. I 
eould not resist my inclination to strike one blow, in the 
hope of hastening ita doom." 

On tho grand subject of the power of the people. 
General Garfield was always eloquent in speaking. In a 
speech delivered at Cleveland in October, 1879, he eaid : 

" Fellow-citizens, what is the central thought in Amer- 
ican life 1 What is the germ out of which all our institu- 
tions were born and have been developed? Let me give 
it to you in a word. When the Mayflower was about to 
land her precious freight upon the shore of Plymouth, 
the Pilgrim Fathers gathered in the cabin of that little 
ship, "ii a stormy November day, and after praying to 
Almighty God for the success of their great enterprise, 
drew up and signed what is known in history, and what 
rrill be known to the last syllable of recorded time, as 



JAMBS A. UMibVELD. 341 



THE TILGKIM COVENANT. 



In that covenant is one sentence which I ask you to take 
home with you to night. It is this : 'We agree before 
God and each other that the freely-expressed will of the 
majority shall be the law of all, which we will all obey.' 
[Applause.] Ah, fellow-citizens, it does honor to the heads 
and the hearts of a great New England audience here on 
this Western Reserve to applaud the grand and simple 
sentiment of the Pilgrim Fathers. They said, ' No stand- 
ing army shall be needed to make us obey. We will erect 
here in America a substitute for monarchy, a substitute 
for despotism, and that substitute shall be the will of the 
majority as the law of all.' And that germ, planted on 
the rocky shores of New England, has sprung up, and all 
the trees of our liberty have grown from it into the beauty 
and glory of this year of our life.'- [Applause.] 



348 THE BIOOHM'UY Of' 



CHAPTER XIV. 

L88A88INATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN. END OF CIVIL WAK. 

I have remarked that it would require a volume to 
record the events of General Garfield's Congressional 
career. \\\> labors in that body were prodigious. Besides 
numerous short speeches in the course of discussions of 
various topics brought to the consideration of Congress, 
he delivered mere than forty elaborate speeches, of which 
that number appeared in pamphlet form. These all 
required great research and a vast store of knowledge. 
The following is a list, of their titles, with the dates of 
their delivery : 

1. Free Commerce between the States : On the Bill to 
declare the Raritan and Atlantic Railroad a Legal Struc- 
ture, March 24 and 31, 1864. 

'.'. Constitutional Amendment to Abolisb Slavery, Jan- 
uary L3, L865. 

3. Preedmen'8 Bureau : Restoration of the Rebel 
States February 1, 1866. 

4. The Public Debt and specie Payments, March 16, 
L866. 

5. To Establish a National Bureau of Education /June 
8, U 

6. On the Bill to place the Rebel Stales under Military 
< 'ontiol, Februarj 8, L867. 

7. On Reconstruction, and the Constitutional Power 
of CongreBB to control the Army, January 17, 1868. 

8. <>n the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, Febru- 
arj 89, l- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 343 

9. The Currency, May 15, 1868. 

10. Taxation of United States Bunds, in reply to 
Hons. Fred. A. Pike and B. F. Butler, July 15, 1868. 

11. Ninth Census, December 16, 1869. 

12. Public Expenditures and the Civil Service, March 
14, 1870. 

13. The Tariff, April 1, 1870. 

14. Currency and the Banks, June 7, 1870. 

15. Debate on the Currency Bill, June 15, 1870. 

16. The McGarrahan Claim, February 20, 1871. 

17. The Right to originate Kevenue Bills, March 3, 

1871. 

18. Enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment, April 

4, 1871. 

19. Public Expenditures : their Increase and Dimi- 
nution, January 23, 1872. 

20. National Aid to Education, February 6, 1872. 

21. Revenues and Expenditures, March 5, 1874. 

22. Currency and the Public Faith, April 8, 1874. 

23. Appropriations of the First Session of the Forty- 
third Congress, June 23, 1874. 

24. Cheap Transportation and Railways, June 22, 1874. 

25. Amnesty : Reply to Hon. B. H. Hill, January 12, 
1876. , 

26. Can the Democratic Party be safely intrusted with 
the Administration of the Government ? August 4, 1876. 

27. John Winthrop and Samuel Adams, December 19, 
1876. 

28. Counting the Electoral Vote, January 25, 1877. 

29. Repeal of the Resumption Law, November 16, 

1877. 

30. The New Scheme of American Finance : a Reply 
to Hon. W. D. Kelley, March 6, 1878. 

31. Carpenter's Painting, "Lincoln and Emancipa- 
tion, " February 12, 1878. 

32. The Policy of Pacification, and the Prosecutions 
in Louisiana, February 19, 1878. 

33. The Army and the Public Peace, May 21, 1878, 



344 TUB BIOGRAPHY OF 

34. The Tariff, June 4, 1878. 

35. Joseph Henry, January 16, 1829. 

3G. Relation ol the National Government to Science, 
February 11, 1879. 

37. Sugar Tariff, February 26, 1879. 

38. Obedience to the Law the Foremost Duty of Con- 
gress, March 17, 1880. 

39. Pulp and Paper : How News and Public Opinion 
are manufactured, May 1, 1880. 

Besides theee speeches, he pronounced some remark- 
able ones at the extraordinary session of Congress between 
March 18 and July 1, 1870. The following are their 
titles : 

Revolution in Congress; Close of Debate on First 
Army Bill ; Legislative Appropriation Bill ; Second Army 
Appropriation Bill; Judicial Appropriation Bill; Judi- 
cial Appropriation Bill, Nullification ; Defense of Union 
Soldiers of Seceded States ; Resumption and the Currency ; 
The New Silver Bill ; The Mississippi River an object of 
National Care; The Revived Doctrine of State Sover- 
eignty; Ancient and Modern Panics. 

On the subject of the abolition of Shivery by Consti- 
tutional Amendments, he was specially earnest. In 
the debate on that subject on January 13, 18G5, George 
H. Pendleton of Ohio (now United States Senator 
from that State), in a speech of great astuteness, took 
the ground that .slavery could not be abolished excepting 
by the consent of each individual State ; that it was one 
of th' 1 rights under the < lonstitution which could 

not be interfered with, like that right by which no State 
can, nnle own consent, over be made to lose its 

equal representation in the Senate. This right of equal 
representation is the only thing that •'> constitutional 






JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 340 

amendment cannot change, and Pendleton undertook to 
bIiow that, in the nature of the case, slavery was such a 
thing, and could not be touched by any power outside of 
the State itself; and if in every State except one the 
amendment should be adopted, in that one it would still 
continue in forco and operation. In answer to this 
speech General Garfield said : 

" Wo shall never know why slavery dies eo hard in 
this Kepublic and in this Hall till we know why sin has 
such longevity and Satan is immortal. With marvellous 
tenacity of existence, it has outlived the expectations of 
its friends and the hopes of its enemies. It has been de- 
clared here and elsewhere to be in all the several stages of 
mortality — wounded, moribund, dead. The question was 
raised by my colleague [Mr. Cox] yesterday, whether it 
was indeed dead, or only in a troubled sleep. I know of 
no better illustration of its condition than is found in 
Sallust's admirable history of the great conspirator, Cat- 
iline, who, when his final battle was fought and lost, his 
army broken and scattered, was found far in advance of 
his own troops, lying among the dead enemies of Rome, 
yet breathing a little, but exhibiting in his countenance 
all that ferocity of spirit which had characterized his life. 
So, sir, this body of plavery lies before us among the dead 
enemies of the Republic, mortally wounded, impotent in 
its fiendish wickedness, but with its old ferocity of look, 
bearing the unmistakable marks of its infernal origin. 

" We can hardly realize that this is the same people 
aud these the same Halls, where now scarcely a man can 
be found who will venture to do more than falter out au 
apology for slavery, protesting in the sumo breath that he 
has no love for the dying tyrant. None, I believe, but 
that man of more than supernal boldness, from the city 
of New York [Mr. Fernando WoodJ, has ventured, this 
session, to raise his voice in favor of slavery for its own 



:;)C. THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Bake. He still sees in its features the reflection of beauty 

and divinity, and only he. ' How art thou fallen from 
Heaven, Lucifer, eon of the morning ! How art thou 
cut down to t He ground, which didst weaken the nations!' 
Many mighty men have been slain by thee ; many proud 
ones have humbled themselves at thy feet ! All along 
the coast of our political sea these victims of slavery lie 
like stranded wrecks, broken on the headlands of freedom. 
How lately did its advocates, with impious boldness, 
maintain it as G d's own, to be venerated and cherished 
as divine ! It was another and higher form of civiliza- 
tion. It was the holy evangel of America dispensing its 
mercies to a benighted race, and destined to bear count- 
less blessings to the wilderness of the West. In its mad 
arrogance it lifted its hand to strike down the fabric of 
the Union, and since that fatal day it has been a 'fugi- 
tive and a vagabond upon the earth.' Like the spirit that 
- cast out, it has, since then, been ' seeking rest and 
finding none.' 

"It has sought in all the corners of the Republic to 
find some hiding-place in which to shelter itself from the 
death it so richly deserves. 

" It sought an asylum in the untrodden territories of 
the West, but with a whip of scorpions indignant freemen 
drove it thence. I do not believe that a loyal man can 
now be found who would consent that it should again 
enter them. It has no hope of harbor there. It found 
no protection or favor in the hearts or consciences of the 
freemen of the Bepublic, and has lied for its last hope of 
safety behind the shield <>f the Constitution. We propose 
t<> follow it there, and drive it thence as Satan was exiled 
from heaven. Hut now, in the hour of its mortal agony, 
in this Hall, it has found a defender. 

"My gallant oolleagne [Mr. Pendleton], for I re- 
cognize hiin ;is a gallant and able man. plants himself al 
the door of his darling, and bids defiance to till assailants. 
tie has followed slavery in d^ flight, until al lasl it has 
peached the great temple where liberty is enshrined — the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. Ul 

Constitution of the United States--and there, in that 
hist retreat, declares that no hand shall strike it. It re- 
minds me of that celebrated passage in the great Latin 
poet, in which the serpents of the Ionian sea, when they 
had destroyed Laocopn and his sons, fled to the heights of 
the Trojan citadel and coiled their slimy lengths around 
the feet of the tutelar goddess, and were covered by the 
orb of her shield. So, under the guidance of my colleague, 
slavery, gorged with the blood of ten thousand freemen, 
has climbed to the high citadel of American nationality, 
and coiled itself securely, as he believes, around the feet 
of the statue of Justice, and under the shield of the Con- 
stitution of the United States. We desire to follow it 
even there, and kill it beside the very altar of liberty. 
Its blood can never make atonement for the least of its 
crimes. 

" But the gentleman has gone farther. He is not 
content that the snaky sorceress shall be merely tender the 
protection of the Constitution. In his view, by a strange 
metamorphosis, slavery becomes an invisible essence, and 
takes. up its abode in the very grain and fibre of the Con- 
stitution But he has gone even deeper than 

the spirit and intent of the Constitution. He has an- 
nounced a discovery to which 1 am sure no other states- 
man will lay claim. He lias found a domain where 
slavery can no mere be reached by human law than the 
life of Satan by the sword of Michael 

"Not finding anything in the words and phrases of 
the Constitution that forbids an amendment abolishing 
slavery, he goes behind all human enactments, and far 
away, among the eternal equities, he finds a primal law 
which overshadows states, nations, and constitutions, as 
space envelops the universe, and by its solemn sanctions 
one human being can hold another in perpetual slavery. 
Surely, human ingenuity has never gone farther to pro- 
tect a malefactor or defend a crime. I shall make no ar- 
gument with my colleague on this point, for in that high 



THE BTOQRAPBT OF 

court to which he appeals, eternal justice dwells with 
freedom, ami slavery has never entered." 

General Garfield was an early, earnest, and most per- 
sistent advocate of the extension of the elective franchise 
to the negro race in our Republic. In his oration at 
Ravenna, Ohio, already mentioned, he made a powerful 
plea in favor of such a righteous measure. In that oration 
he uttered the words which a local newspaper used for a 
motto for a long time afterwards: "Suffrage and Safety, 
like Liberty and Union, are one and inseparable^ 

One of General Garfield's most forcible arguments 
on that occasion was that, unless the ballot was given the 
negroes, since they would henceforth be counted man 
for man in making up the basis of representation, and not 
five for three, as under the old rule of the Constitution, a 
state of things very like the old English rotten-borough 
system would exist in the South, and so perpetuate an 
oligarchy unfriendly to the Government. 

After the evacuation of Richmond by the Confederate 
"Government" and troops at the beginning of April, 
1865, and the late Confederate capital was in the posses- 
sion ..[ colored troops under General Weitzel, President 
Lincoln went to thai city, conveyed up the James River 
in Admiral Porter's flag-ship, Malvern, and landed. 

With the crew of \\w Malvern, armed with carbines, 
the President and the Admiral walk.! to Weitzel's head- 
quarters, cheered on the waj by the huzzas and erateful 
ejaculations of a vast concourse of emancipated slave- who 
had been told that bhe tall man was their Liberator. They 
crowded around him so thickly in their eagerness to see 
him. and I his hand, that a file of soldiers Were 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 340 

needed to clear the way. After riding around the city in 
an open barouche, the President returned to Grant's head- 
quarters, at City Point. 

Two days after this visit, the President went to Rich- 
mond again, accompanied by his wife, the Vice-President 
and several Senators, When lie was called upon by several 
leading Confederates, and was assured by them that if 
the so-called Virginia Legislature might be allowed to 
assemble they would work for the restoration of the 
Union. Anxious to end the war without further blood- 
shed, consent was given, when that body violated the 
pledge. Hearing of this perfidy, on his return to Wash- 
ington, the President revoked the order he had given to 
General Weitzel in the ease, and the Virginia " Legisla- 
ture " retired to private life. 

On the 9th of April the army of General Lee surren- 
dered to General Grant at Appomatox Court House. The 
glad tidings were sent over the land by the Secretary of 
War, together with thanks to General Grant and hia sol- 
diers. To the victor, the Secretary wrote : 

"Thanks be to Almighty God for the great victory 
with which He has this clay crowned you and the gallant 
armies under your command ! The thanks of this De- 
partment and of the Government, and of the people of the 
United States — their reverence and honor have been de- 
served — will be rendered to you and the brave and gallant 
officers and soldiers of your army, for all time." 

There was joy throughout the entire Republic, because 
of the evidences of swift-coming peace. The Secretary 
of War ordered a salut of two hundred guns at the head- 
quarters of every army and department. In hamlets. 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

villages and cities the glad news was greeted by thunder- 
ing cannons and pealing bells. Relief from a crushing 
burden had come to the nation. 

The President had returned to Washington from 
Richmond on the day of Lee's surrender, where he wo* 
the recipient of a multitude of congratulations because of 
the dawn of peace. On the 11th he issued proclamations, 
one declaring the closing, until further notice, of certain 
ports in the Southern States, whereof the blockade had 
been raised by their capture, respectively; and the other, 
demanding, henceforth, for our vessels in foreign ports, 
on penalty of retaliation, those privileges and immunities 
which had hitherto been denied them on the plea of 
according equal belligerent rights to the Republic aud its 
internal enemies. On the same evening, Washington 
( lity was brilliant with bonfires and illuminations because 
of the surrender of Lee. The Executive Mansion was 
tilled with light ; and there, to a vast assemblage of citi- 
zens, the President spoke earnest words concerning the 
md the future -the last words with which he ever 
publicly addressed the people orally. Mr. Lincoln took 
that occasion to set forth his views concerning the reor- 
ganization of society in the States wherein rebellion had 
i, in which he evinced an entire absence of bitter- 
ness of feeling toward those who had conspired and 
rebelled; and he remitted to Congress all questions con- 
nected with the political reorganization of States, and 
their representation in the National Legislature. On the 
following day an order was issued from the War Depart- 
ment, which had been approved by General Grant, putting 

aii end to all drafting and recruiting for the National 
army, and the purchase of munitions of war and supplies; 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 806 

and declaring that the number of general and staff officers 
would be speedily reduced, and all military restrictions on 
trade and commerce be removed forthwith. 

This virtual proclamation of the end of the war went 
over the land on the anniversary of the evacuation of 
Fort Sumter (April 14), while General Anderson was 
replacing the old flag over the ruins of that fortress. Pre- 
parations for a National thanksgiving were a-making, and 
the atmosphere of the Republic, so to speak, was radiant 
with sunlight, when a dark cloud appeared, and suddenly 
overspread the firmament as with a pall. Before mid- 
night the electric messengers went over the land with the 
tidings that the President had been murdered ! The sad 
story may be briefly told as follows : 

On the morning of the 14th, General Grant arrived in 
"Washington. Captain Robert Lincoln, the President's 
son, was one of his staff officers. They had arrived in time 
for the latter to breakfast with his father, and give him 
the narrative of an eye witness, as he was, of the scenes of 
Lee's surrender. At 11 o'clock the President attended a 
Cabinet meeting, at which Grant was present. When 
the meeting adjourned, he made an arrangement with the 
General to attend Ford's Theater in the evening, ami senl 
a messenger t" engage a box. When, awhile afterward, 
Schuyler Colfax, the Speaker of tin- House ,,i' Represent- 
atives, visited him. he invited thai geiftleman i<> accom- 
pany Mr-. Lincoln andhimself to the theater, but previous 
engagements caused Mr. Colfax to decline. General 
Grant was called to New York that evening. 

It was publicly announced in the afternoon, that the 
President and General Grant would be at the theater. 
The house was crowded. Air. Lincoln and a little party 



854 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

arrived just after eight o'clock. The President was 
seated in a high-backed rocking-chair, with Mrs. Lincoln 
and Miss Harris on his left. The box had been draped 
with an American flag in honor of the President. The 
play, " Our American Cousin," was drawing to a close, 
when, at a little past ten o'clock, John Wilkes Booth, an 
actor by profession, passed near the box where the Presi- 
dent and his party were seated, and after presenting a 
card to Mr. Lincoln's messenger, in the passage way, he 
stood and looked down upon the orchestra and the audi- 
ence for a few minutes. 

Booth then entered the vestibule of the President's 
box, closed the door and fastened it from the inside with 
a piece of plank previously provided, so that it might not 
be opened from the outside. lie then drew a Derringer 
pistol, and with this in his right hand, and a long two- 
edged dagger in his left, he entered the inner door of the 
box directly behind the President, who was leaning a 
little forward, absorbed in the interest of the drama. 
Holding the pistol over the back of the chair he shot Mr. 
Lincoln in the head. The ball entered back of the ear, 
and passing throng]] the brain, lodged just behind the 
right eye. The President's head fell slightly forward, and 
closed; he lived nine hours afterward, but was 
not conscious. 

Major Rathbone was Btartled by the report of the pis- 
tol, and seeing Booth, who was half hidden by the powder- 
Bmoke thai filled the box, seized him. The murderer 
tore away from hisgra ped his pistol, and striking 

with his dagger, made a serious wound on the Major's 
left arm. The assassin thru rushed to the front of the 
box, with the gleaming weapon in his hand, and shouted, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 355 

" Sic Semper Tyrannic ! " — So may it be always with 
Tyrants — the motto of the seal of Virginia — and then 
leaped upon the stage. He was booted and spurred for a 
night ride. One of his spurs caught in the flag, and he 
fell. Rising, he turned to the audience and exclaimed, 
' The South is avenged!" and then escaped by a back 
door, where he mounted a horse a boy was holding for 
him, fled across the Anacosta, and found temporary refuge 
with some sympathizing friends among the Maryland slave- 
holders. The President was carried from the theater to 
the house of Mr. Peterson, on the opposite side of the 
street, where he died the next morning (April 15, 1865), 
at twenty-two minutes past seven o'clock. 

So fell, by the hands of an assassin — an embodiment 
of the dark spirit of the Conspirators against the Repub- 
lic — Abraham Lincoln, the best representative of true 
Democracy in America hitherto known. His death occa- 
sioned the most profound grief throughout the Republic, 
Sensible leaders in the Rebellion, now that it was suppress- 
ed, felt that they had lost their best friend. Sorrow was felt 
wherever civilization prevailed. The manner of his death 
sent a thrill of horror everywhere ; the rebound of feeling 
decreed his apotheosis. 

On the night of this dreadful tragedy at the National 
Capital, General Garfield was journeying from Washing- 
ton to .New York. On the morning of the 15th, he found 
the city wild with excitement. Extraordinary editions of 
the newspapers, with large thrilling head-lines, were circu- 
lated everywhere and caught up by eager citizens. Crowds 
gathered about the bulletin boards. There was fearful 
anxiety on every countenance, for the fate of the Govern- 



8M IBB BI0GRAPI1T OF 

mem Beemed to hang on a balance. What was it to be? 
was the momentous question. 

The excitement was increased when news came that 
Secretary Seward was dying, having been assassinated by 
another murderer on the same night. Placards were posted 
everywhere calling a meeting of citizens at the Exchange 
in Wall Street, to give expression to their sentiments. 

At eleven o'clock, the hour appointed for the assem- 
bling of the citizens, fully fifty thousand people crowded 
"Wall Street. Their hearts seemed full of vengeance, and 
fearful scenes were dreaded. From the balcony of the 
Exchange vehement addresses were given, short but full 
of arrows. Very soon a tall, stout young man advanced 
to the front, waved his hand toward the surging angry 
multitude in a plea for silence, and lifting his hands to- 
ward heaven, -aid, in a voice clear and steady, loud and 
distincl : 

•• Fellow-citizens : — Clouds and darkness are round 
abonl Him ! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds 
of the skies ! Justice and judgment are the establish- 
ment ..f Jli.s throne! .Mercy and truth shall go before 
HiS face ! Fellow-citizens ! God reigns, and the Gov- 
ernment at Washington still lives !" 

•'The effect was tremendous," said an eye and ear- 
witness. "The crowd stood rivetted to the ground in 
awe, gazing at the motionless orator, and thinking of God 
ami of Hi- Providence overthe Government and the 
Nation. As the boiling wave subsides and settles to the 
»ea when some strong wind beats it down, so the tumult 
of the people sank and became still. As the rod draws 
ricity from the air and conducts it safely to the 
ground, bo this man had drawn the fury from that frantic 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 8W 

crowd and guided it to more tranquil thoughts than ven- 
geance. It was as if some divinity had spoken through 
him. It was a triumph of eloquence, a flash of inspira- 
tion such as seldom comes to any man, and to not more 
than one man in a century." 

A murmur ran through the crowd, " Who is he ?" 
There were whispers, "If is General Garfield from 
Ohio!" When this answer was repeated, a shout of 
applause burst forth from the multitude. He had come 
to the gathering, and had been recognized by some one 
and invited to the balcony. It is said that he was asked 
afterwards to repeat the few words he had spoken, when 
he answered, "I cannot; I could not have told five 
minutes afterwards. I only know I drew the lightning 
from that crowd, and brought it back to reason." These 
words were recorded by a reporter and were soon flashed 
over the Union. They inspired thousands with hope and 
confidence, and were repeated again and again. When 
President Garfield fell, like President Lincoln, by the 
hand of an assassin, these hopeful words of his were 
remembered, and quieted many a fearful heart : " God 
reigns and the Government at Washington still lives !" 

The terrible Civil War being over, a serene period of 
peace was looked for by the nation. But there were 
wise and sagacious men who perceived that although the 
war in the field was over, there was yet a fearful contest 
to be endured in the halls of legislation, in the ad- 
justment of a multitude of a flairs which the long and 
fierce struggle of more than four years had unsettled. No 
man saw with keener foresight than General Garfield the 
possibilities of the future in the reorgnization and final 
adjustment of all unsettled interests. 

On the 1st of May, 1SG5, there were more thai] a 



3M THE BIO OH A PHY OF 

million men on the muster-roll of the National Army. 
There had been during the war the names of more than 
two million six hundred thousand men, of whom one 
million live hundred thousand had been in actual service. 
The disbanding of this great army was begun on the 1st 
of June, and, before mid-autumn, about eight hundred 
thousand had been mustered out of the 6ervico. 

Then was exhibited the wonderful spectacle for the 
contemplation of the civilized world, of vast armies of 
men, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of war, trans- 
formed in the space of one hundred and fifty days, into a 
Fast army of citizens, engaged in the blessed pursuits of 
peace. No argument in favor of free institutions and a 
republican form of government, so conclusive and potential 
as this, was ever before presented to the feelings and 
judgment of the- nations of the earth. The important 
political problem of the nineteenth century was solved by 
our Civil War. Our Republic no longer appeared as an 
experiment, but as a demonstration. 

The Civil War had laid upon the nation a burden of 
debt, amounting, in round numbers, to three thousand 
million dollars (£.'3,000,000,000). Measures were to be 
devised for the wisest disposition of this debt; plans for 
securing a revenue adequate to rneel the public expense: 
methods of taxation for securing the same ends, and the 
cureful adjustment of tariffs and cognate matters, pre- 
sented themselves for the consideration of the national 
legislature. 

Then, also, came the vastlv important consideration of 
the reorganization of the States in which Rebellion had 
lately existed, and the re-establishment of the Union, 
which demanded immediate attention. In this was in- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 350 

volved the consideration of the status of the four million 
slaves who had been emancipated, and a thousand other 
things, the product or the consequence of the war, were 
pressed upon the attention of the representatives of the 
people everywhere. These matters demanded the ex- 
ercise of the soundest statesmanship. 

General Garfield had clearly perceived at the begin- 
ning of the last session of the Thirty-eighth Congress, as 
we have observed, that the financial question would domi- 
nate all others in public interest for a generation to come, 
and he prepared himself by the most arduous study for 
grappling it with strength. "VVe have seen how that study 
had given him clearness of perception concerning finan- 
cial matters, exhibited in his speech on the Currency. 
Now, as the time for the assembling of the Thirty-ninth 
Congress drew nigh, he resolved to enter a more efficient 
school in pursuit of knowledge of finance and its abstruse 
philosophy than any he had hitherto availed himself of. 

When, at the opening of Congress, in December, 1865, 
the Speaker, Schuyler Colfax, asked General Garfield if 
he had any request to make about the composition of com- 
mittees, he was surprised by his answer. 

" I have only one request to make,'" said Garfield, 
" and that is that I shall be left off the Committee on 
Military Affairs, and assigned to the Committee on Ways 
and Means." 

"Why," said the Speaker, " the Committee on Mili- 
tary Affairs is yet one of the most important sections into 
whicli our House is divided. The reorganization of the 
army and a hundred other things are to be attended to in 
the process of settling down upon a firm peace basis. 
You will have scope enough in the duties of that Coin- 



360 THE BIOGRAPIIT OF 

mittee tot the i xercise of your industry and best Btates- 
tnanBhip." 

" That may be," replied Garfield. "But I am looking 
to the future — the near future of our country, and I per- 
ceive that Finance, which will enter largely into the con- 
sideration of all public measures, should now be the 
special study of statesmen. I wish to fit myself to meet 
the demands of that future of our country, by patient. 
practical study — by clinical lectures in an efficient school ; 
and I conceive the Committee on Ways and Means, which 
has to deal almost exclusively with finance and kindred 
topics, is the best congressional school for such a purpose. 
I wish to enter my name as a pupil." 

The Speaker agreed with Garfield in his views of the 
matter. Garfield was dropped from the Committee on 
Military Affairs, and assigned to a place in the Committee 
on "Ways and Means, of which Justin S. Morrill was 
chairman. The Committee was composed of the follow- 
ing representatives: 

Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont. 
Samuel Hooper, of Massachusetts. 
James Brooks, of New York. 
James A. Garfield, of Ohio. 
JonN Wentworth, of Illinois. 
James K. Moorhead, of Pennsylvania. 
Ros< "i ( Jonkling, "f New York. 
Win i wi B. Allen, of fowa. 
John EIogan, <>t' Missouri. 

From this period of his public Career may he dated 

the amazing growth of General Garfield in the perfect 

quasterv of all functions of detail about currency, taxation. 



JAMbJ.s A. H AH FIELD. $61 

tariff, et cetera, which have marked all his speeches upon 

these subjects. 

On tariffs, General Garfield was regarded as always 
consistent, conservative and sound. In the debate on a 
bill for the revision <>f the tariff of 18t>l, he took a prom- 
inent part. His tirst considerable speech on the subject 
was delivered on July 10, 1866. It was an exponent of 
the doctrines cherished by him, and to which he always 
adhered with great persistency as well as consistency. The 
extract following gives us the key-note : 

'• I hold that a properly-adjusted competition between 
home and foreign products is the best gauge by which to 
regulate international trade. Duties should be so high that 
nur manufacturers can fairly compete with the foreign prod- 
uct, bill not sq high as to enable them to drive uut the 
foreign article, enjoy ;i monopoly of the trade, and regu- 
late the priee as they please. This is my doctrine of Pro- 
tection. If Congress pursues this line steadily, we shall 
ye; r by year approach more nearly to the basis of Free 
Trade, because we shall be more nearly able to compete 
With other nations on equal terms. I am for Protection 
that leads to ultimate Free Trade. I am for that Free 
Trade which can only be achieved through a reasonable 
Protection." 

In his speech on the tariff on April, 1, 1870, General 
Garfield gave a brief review of the tariff laws, and his 
notions concerning tariffs, as follows : 

"As an abstract theory of political economy, Free 
Trade has many advocates, and much can be said in its 
favor; nor will it be denied that the scholarship of mod- 
ern times is largely on that side ; that a large majority of 
the great thinkers of the present day are leading in the 
direction of what is called Free Trade. 

" While this is true, it is equally undeniable that the 



M2 TUB BIOGRAPHY OF 

principle of Protection has always been recognized and 
adopted in some form or anotlier by all nations, and is to- 
day, to a greater or less extent, the policy of every civil- 
ized Government. 

" Protection, in its practical meaning, i.s that provi- 
dent care for the industry and development of our own 
eonntry, which will give our own people an equal chance 
m the pursuit oi* wealth, and save us from the calamity of 
being dependent upon other nations with whom we may 
any day be at War, 

•• In so far as the doctrine of free-trade is a protest 
against the old system of oppression and prohibition, it is 
a healthy and worthy sentiment. But underlying all 
theories, there is a strong and deep conviction in the 
minds of a great majority of our people in favor of pro- 
tecting American industry. 

" Wo are limited in our tariff legislation by two 
thing-; : first, the demands of the Treasury ; and, second, 
the wants and demands of American industry. The 
Treasury we understand, but what is ' American indus- 
try ? ' I reject that narrow view which considers ' indus- 
try ' any one particular form of labor. I object to any 
theory that treats the industries of the country as they 
were treated in the last census, where we had one sched- 
ule for ' agriculture, ' and another for ' industry,' as though 
agriculture were n< t an industry, as though commerce 
and trade and transportation were not industries. 

" American industry is labor in any form which gives 
value to the raw materials or elements of nature, either by 
extracting them from the earth, the air, or the sea, or by 
modifying their forms, or transporting them through the 
channels of trade to the markets of the world, or in any 
way rendering them better fitted for the use of man. All 
these are parts of American industry, and deserve the 
careful and earnest attention of the Legislature of tho 
nation. Wherever a Bhip ploughs the sea, or a plough 
furrows the field ; wherever a mine Melds its treasure; 
Wherever n ship or B railroad tram carries freight to mnr- 



JAMES A. d.WFlELD. W.\ 

ket ; wherever the smoke of the furnace rises, or the clang 
of the loom resounds ; even in the lonely garret where the 
seamstress plies her busy needle, there is industry. 

''There have been few occasions when Congress and 
the country had more need than now of studying the les- 
sons taught by the history of past legislation. I thereforo 
ask the indulgence of the committee for a few moments 
while I review the history of our tariff legislation. As I 
read that history the warning is repeated again and again 
to avoid extremes of legislation on this subject. 

" The second act of the First Congress was what has 
been called the ' Hamilton tariff of 1789,' and continued 
in force, with some additions and modifications, for 
twenty-fivo years. During that period the average rate 
of duty on imported goods did not exceed fifteen per 
cent. 

" The war of 1812 greatly crippled our commerce, and 
proved the necessity of a more independent system of 
homo manufactures. The public debt, which in 1815 
reached 8120,000,000, required an unusually large revenue ; 
and at the meeting of Congress in December. 1815, Mr. 
Madison recommended an increased duty on imports, not 
only for the sake of revenue, but also for the protection 
and maintenance of our manufacturing industry, which 
had received a powerful impulse during the latter part of 
the war. lie expressed the belief that our manufacturing 
industry, 'with a protection not more than is due to tho 
enterprising citizen whose interests are at stake, would 
become at an early day not only safe from occasional com- 
petition from abroad, but a source of domestic wealth and 
even of external commerce.' 

"During that session 'the Calhoun tariff of 181G ' 
was passed, which may be said to mark the beginning of 
discriminating protection. The bill was sustained by the 
South, but opposed by New England : it being claimed 
on the one hand that it would utilize the cotton crop of 
the South, and on the other that it would injure the com- 
merce and fisheries of New England. Tho tariff of 1816 



\ 



/'///•: BIOGRAPHY OF 

years, producing revenue from 20 to 35 
per ei Hi. of the importations; the average rate being abont 
•.'•"' pi r cent. 

" '1 marked the era of what may be called 

tariff,' which passed the House by five major- 

!.\ three. This bill, also, encountered 

t o] ition from New England, Massachusetts 

and N"i Hampshire together casting twenty-three votes 

1 id <>nh ! I'i'cc for it. 

; *ln this tariff 'the American system,' as .Mr. Clay 
named it, found its first complete embodiment. The 
duties ranged from 343^ to -11 per rent. 

When it had been in operation about four years the 
fri< nds of protection determined to push the rates up to 
:i .—rill higher figure, and the act of 1828 was passed by a 
nlos< vote, after an acrimonious debate, with bitter feel- 
ing and intense excitement on both sides. Almost imme- 
diately alter its passage the reaction began, and it went 
itheriug head and force until, in 1832, resistance to 
the tariff assumed the form of nullification and open rebel- 
lion, and the whole countrj was brought to the verge of 
civil war. To avert such a calamity, Henry Clay, the 
great leader of the protective movement, himself came 
forward with a bill reducing the rates by a sliding scale, 
to operate for ten years, until the average of 20 per cent. 
should be reached! It is true thai other questions were 
involved in the issue, but the gentleman will find it un- 
safe to apply the test of liistorj to his assertions. The 
contest was concerning the tariff, particularly the act of 
It was that act whuh South Carolina nullified and 
refused to allov* to bo .executed within her borders. When 
Claw compromises tariff passed, South Carolina revoked 
her acts of nullification, and came out of 1 he contest with 
flying colors. The compromise tariff of Mr. clay pre* 
vented civil war. It went into operation in 1833 : but 

the free-traders pushed their victor) so far that in L840 a 

^•anion came from the other side, and the) were in 

turn driven from power, and the tariff of l v C was adopted, 




LJIYIJTG THE TB_fiGK TO ELgEF_OJV COTTfiGE OJV 
THE JTIGHT OF SE(PT. 5th. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 867 

by which the rate of duty was raised and fixed at an aver- 
age of 33 per cent. 

" In 1845, the Free Trade party having again come 
into power, a heavy reduction of the tariff was made in 
1846, and the rate pushed down to an average of twenty- 
four and one-half per cent. This act continued in force 
without material change during a period of nine years, 
when the Democratic party, flushed with success in the 
Presidential election of 1856, determined to push their 
free-trade policy to a still greater extreme, and in the tariff 
act of 1857 they reduced the rate of duty to twenty and 
one-fourth per cent., a lower rate than it had reached in 
forty years. This law so crippled the revenue of the 
Government that in I860 the Treasury was empty, and 
our credit so poor that the Secretary was paying twelve 
per cent, interest for loans, which even at that rate he 
found it difficult to negotiate. As might be expected, 
there was another reaction in favor of higher rates, and 
the year 1861 marked a new era in the history of the 
tariff. In the winter of 1860-61 the rates Avere again 
raised. From- the 2d of March, 1861, to the present time 
there have been thirteen separate tariff acts and reso- 
lutions, all of which have more or less increased the rate 
of duties, and it now averages about forty-seven and one- 
half per cent, on dutiable articles and over forty-one per 
cent, on all our imports, both dutiable and free. 

'•'That these acts were made necessary by the Avar, 
few will venture to deny. It is also undeniable that the 
heavy internal taxes imposed upon manufacturing indus- 
tries neutralized the effect of protective duties, and made 
an increase of the tariff necessary as a measure of com- 
pensating protection. But, as I have already shown, the 
heaviest burdens of internal taxes have been removed 
from manufactures, and a demand that some correspond- 
ing reduction in the tariff rates shall be made is coming 
up from all quarters of the country. The signs are un- 
mistakable that a strong reaction is setting in against the 
14 



Till: mOQRAPHY <>!■' 

prevailing rates, and he is no! m wise legislator who shuts 
his eyes to the facts of i he situation. 

••Tin' historical review I have given strongly exhibits 
the fact thai the industry of the country during the last 
half centurj has been repeatedlj tossed 141 ami down be- 
tween tw< 3 of policy, and the country has suffered 

greal 1"--' by each violent change. 

* ♦ * * * * 

••The greal want of industry is a stable policy; and 
it is a significant comment on the character of our legis- 
lation that Congress has become a terror to the business 
men of the country. This very day the great industries 
of the Nation are standing still, half paralyzed at the un- 
certainty which hangs over our proceedings here. A dis- 
tinguished citizen of my own district lias lately written 
me this significant sentence: 'If the laws of God and 
nature were ;i~ vacillating and uncertain as the laws of 
CongresE in regard to the business of its people., the uni- 
verse would soon fall into chaos.' 

" I will not indulge in crimination or recrimination. 
I will take no part in the violent denunciation which we 
have heard in the progress of this debate. I do not be- 
lieve, on the one hand, thai the manufacturers are cor- 
ruptly striving for their own gain as against, the public 
good : nor. on the other, that the Free Traders have been 
boughi with British gold, and are wilfully and knowingly 
the enemies of I heir country. 

•• I stand now where 1 have always stood since I have 
been a member of this House. 1 take the liberty of quot- 
ing, from the Congressional (llolw of lstiti, the following 
remarks which I then made on the subjeel of the tariff : 

" 'We have seen that one extreme school of economists 
would place the price of all manufactured articles in the 
hands of foreign producers by rendering it impossible for 
our manufacturers to compete with them ; while the other 
me school, by making it impossible for the foreigner 
to sell his competing waree in our market, would give the 
people no immediate check upon the prices which our 



JAMES A. OATiEJELT). 869 

manufacturers might fix for their products. 1 disagree 
with both these extremes. I hold that a properly adjusted 
competition between home and foreign products is the 
best guage by which to regulate international trade. 
Duties should be so high that our manufacturers can 
fairly compete with the foreign product, but not so high as 
to enable them to drive out the foreign article, enjoy a 
monopoly of the trade, and regulate the price as they 
please. This is my doctrine of protection. If Congress 
pursues this line of policy steadily, we shall, year by year, 
approach more nearly to the basis of free-trade, because 
we shall be more nearly able to compete with other nations 
on equal terms. I am for a protection which leads to 
ultimate free-trade. I am for that free-trade which can 
only be achieved through a reasonable protection.' 

"Mr. Chairman, examining thus the possibilities of 
the situation, I believe that the true course for the friends 
of protection to pursue is to reduce the rates on imports 
wherever we can justly and safely do so, and accepting 
neither of the extreme doctrines urged on this floor, en- 
deavor to establish a stable policy that will commend itself 
to all patriotic and thoughtful people." 



370 TJIK BTOQEAP37 OP 



CHAPTER XV. 

,,Ai:i lll.l' IN I Ml. -I I'l.M Ml COURT. ON EDUCATION AND 
•' HONES'] MONEY." 

<ii mi;ai. GrAK] ii ld's admission to the practice of law 
in the Supreme Court of the United States was accom- 
plished in an unusual and singular manner. When the 
war was over, lie was ready to submit the administration 
and execution of all laws To the Civil Power. He had 
always deprecated the tendency to extend undue power to 
the military in the exercise of jurisdiction in civil matters, 
during the war. and now he resisted every attempt in 
Congress to do bo, especially the giving authority to mili- 
tary commissions to deal with disloyal Mien, like Vallan- 
digham. 

Genera] Garfield regarded the civil power as fully 
sufficient in it-elf for dealing with such eases, and likely 
to he more just. Besides, it was un-American, and con- 
trary to the Bpiril of old English liberty, to make the 
civil power subservient to the military. In this belief, 
and this resistance t<> Buch legislation, he was in hearty 
accord with Henry Winter Davi6, an aide representative 
from a Maryland district. This spirit had attracted the 
attention and commendation of leading members of tlu: 

Democratic party, notably of Judge Jeremiah Black, who 
had been A.ttorney-General in Buchanan's cabinet. 

Judge Black was acting in the Bpring of L866 as attor- 
ney for the friends of three men. citizens of Indiana — 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 371 

Milligan, Bowles and Horsey — who had been convicted 
and sentenced for conspiring against the Goverment in 
preventing enlistments and encouraging desertions from 
the army. They had been tried in 1864 while the war 
was in progress, and had been sentenced to death by a mil- 
itary commission, sitting in Indianapolis, where no war 
existed. Mr. Lincoln commuted their sentence to imprison- 
ment for life, and they were then (1866) in the State 
prison at Indianapolis. 

General Garfield had condemned this case in his strong 
opposition to such proceedings in general, on the floor of 
Congress. Judge Black had highly commended him at 
the time, and, remembering his course, now sought his 
assistance in this case, to test the constitutionality of the 
act which had inflicted punishment on these men. Their 
friends had taken out a writ of habeas corpus, and brought 
them before two judges of the Circuit Court of Indiana, 
who had disagreed, and certified their disagreement up to 
the Supreme Court of the United States. 

Judge Black asked Garfield if he was willing to say, in 
an argument in the Supreme Court, what he had said on 
the floor of Congress. I give the rest of the story as told 
by Edmund Kirke, as follows : 

" Garfield's answer was, ' That depends altogether upon 
the nature of your case.' Judge Black then gave him 
briefly the facts of the case and the record of the trial. 
Garfield read it, and on meeting Judge Black again, said : 
'I believe in that doctrine.' The astute old lawyer then 
said to the young Congressman : 

" ' Young man, it is a perilous thing for a young Re- 
publican in Congress to endorse such doctrines, and I 
don't want you to injure yourself.' 

"'That consideration,' answered Garfield, 'does noi 



372 Till: BTOORAPHI OF 

weigh with me. I believe in English liberty and English 
law, but, Judge Black, 1 am not a practitioner in the Su- 
preme Court, and 1 never tried a case in any court in my 
life.' 

•• The Judge answered : ' How Long ago were you ad- 
mitted to the bar : ' 

• 'About six years/ said Garfield. 

"'Thai will do,' said Judge Black. 'You must now 
be admitted to the Supreme Court, and try this case with 
me.' 

"Garfield was admitted, and at once entered upon 
this important case. 

"There was a strong array of counsel on both sides. 
The prisoners were represented by Hon. J. S. Black of 
Pennsylvania, lion. David Dudley Field, of New York, 
Eon. J. E. McDonald, of Indiana, who bad been on the 
bench of that State, and General Garfield ; the Govern- 
ment by Hon. .lames Speed, Attorney-General, lion. 
Henry Stanberry, and General B. F. Butler, who was 
called in because of his military as well as legal knowl- 
edge 

'• Garfield sat down to his work after his usual fashion, 
and soon mastered the subject thoroughly. With the ex- 
ception of f«>iir or the hours given to sleep, he studied 
two days and two nights, and then had wrought out the 
points of bis argument. 

"On the day before the trial, the counsel for the 
prisoners met in Washington to determine upon the con- 
duct of the case, is Boon as they had come together, 
Judge Black said : 

"'We will hear first from our youngest member. Gar- 
field, \\ liai do yon intend to say F ' 

"These nun wire the foremosl lawyers in the land, 
and the young lawyer, not ten days admitted, was to show 
bis hand before them. It required more pluck than to 
race the fire of Ohickamauga. But he took his points 
coolly, and Btated succinctly the line of his argument, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 373 

When ho was through, they said to him with one accord, 
'Don't change one word or one point.' 

"On the following day the cast' was tried in the Su- 
preme Court. McDonald opened for the prisoners ; Gar- 
field followed him ; Black followed him, and David Dud- 
ley Field closed the argument. And the case was decided 
in their favor. 

" Garfield spoke for two hours, and his argument, 
which was reported in short-hand, was printed in pamph- 
let form and given a wide circulation. By eminent legal 
authority it was pronounced conclusive and masterly." 

In the course of the speech before the Supreme Court 
General Garfield said : 

"From this review of the history and character of 
martial law, I am warranted by the uniform precedents of 
English law for many centuries, by the uniform practice 
of our fathers during the Colonial and Revolutionary 
periods, by the unanimous decisions of our courts, and by 
the teachings of our statesmen, to conclude : 

" 1. That the Executive has no authority to suspend 
the writ of habeas corpus, or to declare or administer mar- 
tial law ; much less has any military subordinate of the 
Executive such authority ; but these high functions be- 
long exclusively to the supreme legislative authority of 
the nation. 

" 2. That if, in the presence of great and sudden 
danger, and under the pressure of overwhelming necessity 
the Chief Executive should, without legislative warrant, 
suspend the writ of habeas corpus or declare martial law, 
he must not look to the courts for justification, but to 
the Legislature for indemnification. 

" 3. That no such necessity can be pleaded to justify 
the trial of a civilian by a military tribunal, when the 
legally authorized civil courts are open and unobstructed." 

" It is in your power, Judges, to erect in this citadel 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

of our Liberties a monument more lasting tlian brass; in- 
risible indeed to the eye of flesh, but visible to the eye of 
the Bpirit, as the awful form and figure of justice, crown- 
ing and adorning the Republic ; rising above the storms 
of political strife, above the din of hat tie, above the earth- 
quake shock of rebellion : seen from afar and bailed as 
protector ly the oppressed of all nations; dispensing 
equal blessings, and covering with the protecting shield 
uf law the weakest, the humblest, the meanest, and, un- 
til declared by solemn law unworthy of protection, the 
guiltiest of its citizens." 

" This Bpeech gave him at once a high standing in the 
Supreme Court, and soon brought him many important 
The men he had defended were poor and in 
prison. Garfield had aever seen them, never had any re- 
lation with them, and was never paid for his services in 
any other way than by the valuable practice which came 
bo him in consequence of defending them. He never was 
without a ease in the Supreme Court afterwards, and had 
as many as Beven in the course of a twelvemonth.-' 

In February, L866, the National Association of School 
Superintendents held its annual meeting in Washington. 
They drew up a memorial to Congress, asking for the 
establishment, by its authority, of a National Bureau or 
Department of Education. The memorial was put into 
General Garfield's hands for presentation to Congress. 
He was an educator and a warm and abiding friend of 
education, and they felt that it could not be entrusted to 
better care. 

This memorial was referred to a Belect committee, of 
which Genera] Garfield was chairman. It reported a 
" Bill to Establish a National Bureau of Education," and 
on June s (1866) he made an able speech in support of 
'!"■ bill. Jt was finally passed ; and tins is die history of 



JAMB8 .1. GARFIELD. 875 

the origin of the important Bureau of Education, so 
ably presided over by Colonel Eaton. The passage of the 
measure was almost wholly owing to the influence of Gen- 
eral Garfield's arguments and exertions. He always 
warmly defended the Bureau when assailed. 

General Garfield's voice was always heard in favor of 
any wise scheme for extending the blessings of Education 
to the people. In February, IS 72, the House of Repre- 
sentatives had under consideration a bill to establish an 
educational fund, and to apply the proceeds of the public 
lands to the education of the people. General Garfield 
spoke as follows in favor of the bill : 

" Mr. Speaker : In the few minutes given me I shall 
address myself to two questions. The first is, What do 
we propose by this bill to give to the cause of education ? 
and the second is, How do we propose to give it ? Is the 
gift itself wise, and is the mode in which we propose to 
give it wise ? This arrangement will include all I have 
to say. 

" And first, we propose, without any change in the 
present land policy, to give the net proceeds of the public 
lands to the cause of education. During the last fifteen 
years these proceeds have amounted to a little more than 
thirty-three million dollars, or one per cent, of the entire 
revenues of the United States for that period. The gift 
is not great, but yet, in one view of the case, it is princely. 
To dedicate for the future a fund which is now one per 
cent, of the revenues of the United States to the cause of 
education is, to my mind, a great thought, and I am glad 
to give it my endorsement. 

" It seems to me that, in this act of giving, we almost 
copy its prototype in what God himself has done on this 
great continent of ours. In the centre of its greatest 
breadth, where otherwise there might be a desert forever, 



876 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

he has planted a chain of the greatest lakes on the earth, 
and the exhalations arising from their pure waters every 
da\ come down in gracious showers, and make that a 
blooming garden which otherwise might he a desert waste. 
And from our great wilderness lauds it is proposed that 
their proceeds, like the dew. shall fall forever, not upon 
the lands, but upon the minds of the children of the 
Nation, giving them, for all time to come, all the 
ing and growth and greatness that education can afford. 
That thought, I say it again, is a great one, worthy of a 
great nation : and this country will rememher the man 
who formulated it, into language, and will rememher the 
Congress that made it law. 

"The other point is one of even greater practical value 
and significance just now than this that I have referred 
to. It is this : How is this great gift to he distributed ? 
We propose to give it, Mr. Speaker, through our Ameri- 
can system of education; and, in giving it, we do not 
propose to mar in the least degree the harmony and 
beauty of that system. If we did, I should he compelled 
to give my voice and vote against (lie measure : and here 
and now, when we are inaugurating this policy, I desire 
to state for- myself and, as I believe, for many who sit 
around me, that we do here solemnly protest that this 
gift is ii"t to destroy or disturb, but it is rather to he 
used through and as a part of. and to be wholly subordi- 
nated to what 1 venture to call our great American system 
of education. 

"(»n this question 1 have been compelled heretofore 
to differ with many friends of education, here and else- 
where; many who have thought it might be wise for 
Congress, in certain com ingencies, to take charge of the sys- 
tem of education in the States. 1 will no! now discuss the 
constitutional a pects of that question ; hut I desire tosay 
that all the philosophy of our educational system forbids 

that we should lake such a course. And. in the few 

momenta awarded to me. I wish to make an appeal for 
our system as a whole a y other known to me. 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 377 

"We look sometimes with great admiration at a 
Government like Germany, that can command the light 
of its education to shine everywhere, that can enforce its 
school laws everywhere throughout the empire. Under 
our system we do not rejoice in that, hut we rather rejoice 
that here two forces play with all their vast power upon 
our system of education. The first is that of the local, 
municipal power under our State governments. There is 
the center of responsibility. There is the chief educa- 
tional power. There can be enforced Luther's great 
thought of placing on magistrates the duty of educating 
children. 

"Luther was the first to perceive that Christian schools 
were an absolute necessity. In a celebrated paper ad- 
dressed to the municipal councilors of the empire in 1524, 
he demanded the establishment of schools in all the vil- 
lages of Germany. To tolerate ignorance was, in the 
■energetic language of the reformer, to make common 
cause with the devil. The father of a family who aban- 
doned his children to ignorance was a consummate rascal. 
Addressing the German authorities, he said : 

" ' Magistrates, remember that God formally com- 
mands you to instruct children. This divine command- 
ment parents have transgressed by indolence, by lack of 
intelligence, and because of overwork. 

" 'The duty devolves upon you, magistrates, to call 
fathers to their duty, and to prevent the return of these 
evils which we suffer to-day. Give attention to your 
children. Many parents are like ostriches, content to 
have laid an egg, but caring for it no longer. 

" ' Xow, that which constitutes the prosperity of a 
city is not its treasures, its strong walls, its beautiful 
mansions, and its brilliant decorations. The real wealth 
of a city, its safety and its force, is an abundance of citi- 
zens, instructed, honest, and cultivated. If in our days 
we rarely meet such citizens, whose fault is it, if not 
yours, magistrates, who have allowed our youth to grow 
up like neglected shrubbery in the forest ? 

" ' Ignorance is more dangerous for a people than the 
armies of an enemy,' . 



THE BI0QRAPH7 OF 

" Aiter quoting this passage from Luther, Laboulaye, in 
hie eloquent essay entitled "L'Etat.et ses Limites," pages 
;.'<>-i and 205, sa] - : 

" ' Thifl fainiliav and true eloquence was not lost. 
There is not a Protestant country which has not placed in 
the fronl rank of its duties the establishment and mainte- 
nance of popular schools. 5 

"The duties enjoined in these great utterances of 
Luther are recognized to the fullest extent by the Ameri- 
can ByBtem. But they are recognized as belonging to the 
authorities of the State, the county, the township, the 
local communities. There these obligations may be urged 
with all the strength of their high sanctions. There may 
be broughl to hear all the patriotism, all the morality, all 
the philanthropy, all the philosophy of our people; and 
there it is brought to bear in its noblest and best forms. 

'■ But there is another force even greater than that of 
the State and the local governments. It is the force of 
private voluntary enterprise, that force which has built 
Up the multitude of private schools, academies, and col- 
throughoui the United Slates, not always wisely, 
butalways with enthusiasm and wonderful energy. I say, 
therefore, that our Local self-government, joined to and co- 
operating with private enterprise, have made the American 
system of education what it is. 

"In further illustration of its merits, I beg leave to 
allude t" a IV u tacts of great significance. The Govern- 
ment- of Europe are now beginning to see that our sys- 
tem ie hotter ami more efficient than thefts. The public 
mind of England is now, and ha-' been for several years, 
profoundly moved on the subjeel of education. Several 
oomm - have lately been sent by the British Gov- 

ernment t" examine the school systems of other countries 
and lay before Parliament the results of their investiga- 
tions^ enable that hody to profit by the experience 
ins. 




OJT THE WjiY TO THE 8EJ.8IQE. 






JAMES A. GARFIELD. 381 

" Rev. J. Frazier, one of the assistant commissioners 
appointed for this purpose, visited this country in 1865, 
and in the following year made his report to Parliament. 
While he found much to criticise in our system of educa- 
tion, he did not withhold his expressions of astonishment 
at the important part which private enterprise played in 
our system. In concluding his report, lie speaks • of the 
United States as ' a nation of which it is no flattery or 
exaggeration to say that it is, if not the most highly, yet 
certainly the most generally, educated and intelligent 
people on the globe.' 

" But a more valuable report was delivered to Parlia- 
ment in 1868, by Matthew Arnold, one of the most culti- 
vated and profound thinkers of England. He was sent 
by Parliament to examine the schools and universities of 
the Continent, and, after visiting all the leading states of 
Europe, and making himself thoroughly familiar with 
their system of education, he delivered a most searching 
and able report. In the concluding chapter, he discusses 
the wants of England on the subject of education. No 
one who reads that chapter can fail to admire the bold- 
ness and power with which ho points out the chief obsta- 
cles to popular education in England. He exhibits the 
significant fact that, while during the last half century 
there has been a general transformation in the civil or- 
ganization of European governments, England, with all 
her liberty and progress, is shackled with what he calls a 
civil organization, which is, from the top to the bottom 
of it, not modern. He says : 

" ' Transform she must unless she means to come at 
last to the same sentence as the church of Sardis "Thou 
hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." 

" 'However, on no part of this immense task of trans- 
formation have I now to touch, except on that part which 
relates to education ; but this part, no doubt, is the most 
important of all, and it is the part whose happy accom- 
plishment may render that of all the rest, instead of being 
troubled and difficult, gradual and easy. . . . 



382 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

"'Obligatory instruction is talked of. But what is 
the capital difficulty in the way of obligatory instruction, 
or, indeed, anj national Bystem of instruction in this 
count r] ': It . hat the moment the working class 

of this country have this question of instruction really 
broughi borne t" them, their self-respecl will make them 
demand, like the working classes on tin Continent, pub- 
schools which the clergyman, or the 
squire, or the mill-owner calls •• m\ school !'" 

'•'Ami what is the capital difficulty in the wa\ of 
giving them public schools ? It is this, that the public 
school for the people must rest upon the municipal or- 
ganization of the country. In France, Get man} , Italy, 
Switzerland, the public elementary school has, and exists 
by having, the commune, and ihe municipal government 
of the commune, as its foundations, and it could not ex- 
isl without them. But we, in England, have our munic- 
ipal organization still to gel ; the country districts, with 
us, have at present only the feudal and ecclesiastical or- 
ganization of the Middle Ages, or of France before the 
revolution. . . 

'• 'The real preliminary to an effective system of pop- 

ular education is, in fact, to provide the country with an 

effective municipal organization ; and here, then, is at the 

outsel an illustration of what I said, that modern societies 

a civil organization which is modern. ' 

•• In the early pari of 1870 a report was made to the 
Minister of Public Instruction 1>\ .Mi-. ('. Hippeau, a man 
of great learning, and who in the previous year had Been 
ordered by the French (xovernment to visit the United 
State- and make a careful Btud} of our system of public 
education. In summing up his conclusions, at the end of 
his report, he expresses opinions which are remarkable 
for their boldness, when we remember the character of 
the French Government at that time: and his recom- 
mendations have a most significant application to the 
principle undi leration. I translate hi- concluding 

paragraphs : 

"'What impresses me i Btrongly as the result of 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 3«3 

this study of public instruction in the United States is 
the admirable power of private enterprise in a country 
where the citizens early adopted the habit of foreseeing 
their own wants for themselves ; of meeting together and 
aeting in concert; of combining their means of action; 
of determining the amount of pecuniary contribution 
which they will impose upon themselves, and of regu- 
lating its use; and, finally, of choosing administrators 
who shall render them an account of the resources placed 
at their disposal, and of the use which they may make of 
their authority. 

" 'The marvelous progress made in the United States 
during the last twenty years would have been impossible 
if the national life, instead of being manifested on all 
points of the surface, had been concentrated in a capital, 
under the pressure of a strongly organized administration, 
which, holding the people under constant tutelage, wholly 
relieved them from the care of thinking and acting by 
themselves and for themselves. 

" ' Will France enter upon that path of decentralization 
which will infallibly result in giving a scope, now un- 
known, to all her vital forces and to the admirable re- 
sources which she possesses ? In what especially concerns 
public instruction shall we see her multiplying, as in 
America, those free associations, those generous donations 
which will enable us to place public instruction on the 
broadest foundation, and to revive in our provinces the 
old universities that will become more flourishing as the 
citizens shall interest themselves directly in their prog- 
ress ? 

" ' To accomplish this .it will also be necessary that 
Governments, appreciating the wants of their epoch, 
shall with good grace relinquish a part of the duties now 
imposed upon them, and aid the people in supporting the 
rigid regime of liberty, by enlarging the powers of the 
municipal councils and of the councils of the depart- 
ments, by favoring associafeions and public meetings, by 
opening the freest field to the examination and discussion 
of national interests ; in short, by deserving the eulogy 
addressed by a man of genius to a great minister of 
France: " Monseigneur, you have labored ten years to 
make vourself useless." ' 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

■■ I have made those citations to show how strongly 
the public thought of Europe is moving toward our sys- 
tem of public education as better and freer than theirs. 
1 do not now discuss the broader political question of 
Stair and municipal government as contrasted with cen- 
tralized government. I am considering what is the best 
m of organizing the educational work of a nation, 
not from the political standpoint alone, but from the 
standpoint of the school-house itself. This work of pub- 
lication partakes in a peculiar way of the spirit of 
the human mind in its efforts for culture. The mind 
must be as free from extraneous control as possible ; must 
work under the inspiration of its own desires for knowl- 
edge : and while instructors and books are necessary 
helps, the fullest and highest success must spring from 
t he power of self-help. 

"So the best Bystem of education is that which draws 
Lief support from the voluntary effort of the com- 
munity, from the individual efforts of citizen-, and from 
those burdens of taxation which they voluntarily impose 
upon themselves. The assistance proposed in this bill is 
to be given through the channels of this, our American 
system. The amount proposed is large enough to stimu- 
late to greater effort and to general emulation the 
different Stati - ami the local Bchool authorities, but not 
large enough to carry tin system on. and to weaken all 
these forces by making the friends of education feel that 
the work for them without their own effort. Gov- 

ernment dial! ho <>nl\ a help to them, rather than a com- 
mander in t he w oris of educat ion. 

•• In conclusion, I say thai in the pending bill we dis- 
claim any control over the educational Bystem of the 
We only require reports of what they do with 
our bounty; and those reports, brought here ami pub- 

I for the information of the people, will spread 

abroad the light and awaken the enthusiasm and emu- 
lation of our people. Tin.- polioy is in harmony with the 
act of • ating the Bureau of Education, and whose 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 365 

fruits have already been so abundant in good results. I 
hope that the House will set its seal of approval on our 
American system of education, and will adopt this mode 
of advancing and strengthening it." 

General Garfield took a very active part in the labors 
of Congress for the reorganization of the Union. These 
labors began at the opening of the Thirty-ninth Congress. 
At about the same time was begun the unseemly warfare 
of President Johnson against the National Legislature, 
which he kept up until the end of his administration in 

March, 1869. 

Johnson began the execution of a plan which he had 
formed for the restoration of the Union, in the summer of 
1865, which was to restore the States in which rebellion 
had existed, to their former position in the Union, with- 
out any provision for securing to the freedman the right 
to the exercise of his citizenship, which the amendment 
to the National Constitution, then before Congress, would 
justly entitle him to. Under his plan the reorganized 
State Governments would be bound only to respect his 
freedom. 

This total disregard of the highest interests of the 
freedmen, and the fact that the President was making 
haste to pardon a large number of the most active leaders 
in the late rebellion, startled the loyal men of the country, 
and made them doubt the sincerity of his vehement 
declarations of intention to " punish traitors and to make 
treason odious."' 

At the dose of 1865, it was clear to the minds of sa- 
gacious observers that the President was more friendly 
to the late enemies of his country than consistency with his 
professions, or the safety of the Republic, would allow. 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

It was also perceived, as a consequence of this friendli- 
ness, that the politicians and newspapers which had 

worked in the interest of the late rebellion had assumed 
an insolent and belligerent tone toward Congress and the 
Loyal people. 

When Congress assembled in December, the subject 
of reorganization was among the first business of the 
session, and by a joint resolution a committee of 
■i was appointed to make inquiries and report. This 
was known by the misnomer, "Reconstruction Com- 
mittee." This action offended the President, it was 
an interference of the representatives of the people with 
hi-' chosen plan of reorganization, and he at once assumed 
an attitude of hostility to Congress. 

The warfare which followed, offensive on the part of 
the President and defensive on the part of Congress, 
fori lied material for one of the most forbidding chapters in 
our national history. The President, in a vulgar 
harangue to the populace, in front of the Presidential 
mansion on the 22d of January, 1 866, forgetting the dignity 

of his position, ami the gravity of the questions at issue, 

denounced byname leading members of Congress, and 

the Republican party, which had given him their confi- 
dence, and raised him to his exalted station. That party 
he imw .le, .-ried, and returned to the bosom of the 
Democratic party, from which he had emerged under 
pretenses of loyalty to his government. 

hater in the year I A.UgUSt and September), the Presi- 
dent, and a part of his cabinet, with a pretext of honoring 
the deceased Senator Douglas by being present at the 
dedication of a monumenl to hi- memory ;it Chicago, 
made a journey to that city and beyond. At various 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 387 

places on that journey he harangued the people in language 
utterly unbecoming the Chief Magistrate of a nation, and 
attempted to sow the dangerous seeds of sedition, by de- 
nouncing Congress as " an illegal body," deserving of no 
respect from the people ; and the majority of its members as 
traitors, " trying to break up the government." That 
journey of the President's, so disgraceful in all its features 
-■-its low, partisan object, its immoral performance, and its 
pitiful results — forms a dark paragraph in the history of 
the Republic. 

Congress having the right, and possessing the power, 
went forward in the business of its reorganization of the 
Government, unmindful of the President's impotent oppo- 
sition, manifested in the pitiful way of vetoing the acts of 
Congress of every kind (which, were uniformly passed over 
the veto by a constitutional vote), until he openly defied 
their power and seemed to be on the point of organizing a 
revolution, with the aid of the leaders in the late rebellion. 
Then he was impeached, upon charges of " high crimes 
and misdemeanors," and escaped the disgrace of deposi- 
tion only by a single vote. Wise Republicans believed the 
honor of the nation would be better secured by enduring 
the absurd Chief Magistrate for a season, than by pun- 
ishing him. 

In the debates upon questions arising out of the work 
of reorganization, General Garfield delivered several 
important speeches, notably on the Bill to Enlarge the 
Freedmen's Bureau, early in 1806, and on the Bill to 
Place the Rebel States under Military Control. In all 
that unhappy conflict between the Executive and Legis- 
lative Departments of the Government, Garfield stood 



388 THE lilOORAPUY OF 

resolutely in a position in support of his party and of 
< longress. 

At the close of the Thirty-ninth Congress, General 
Garfield found his usually robust health was considerably 
impaired by his prodigious and exhaustive labors in 
Congress, by his professional duties and his never-ceasing 
studies. He held that the wisest man never rises aftove 
the sphere of a pupil, and that man's highest aim should 
be the acquisition of knowledge. Perceiving the neces- 
sity for recuperation, he determined to gratify a long- 
cherished desire and make a trip to Europe. In the 
following summer he and his wife sailed from New York 
for Liverpool. They were absent four months. 

According to hie customary habit whenever he had 
anything important to do, General Garfield laid out a 
regular plan of travel and pursued it. They landed at 
Liverpool and went to London, stopping at Chester, near 
the English home of the Garfields. After remaining in 
London about a week, and listening to the great reform 
debate which resulted in giving the ballot to seven hun- 
dred thousand British subjects, they proceeded to Scot- 
land, and then, crossing the North Sea. landed at Rotter- 
dam, in I Iolland. 

Leaving Holland, Garfield proceeded to Brussels, and 
then up the Rhine into Switzerland. They soon crossed 
the Alp- into Italy, visiting Milan and Venice. At Rome 
tiny remained a week, both being fascinated by its monu- 
ments, its ruins, its art and its classic associations. From 
Rome they wenl to Paris, where they spenl another 
week. Oro ing the Channel, they spenl a few days in 
London and Liverpool, when they crossed to Ireland, 
landingat Kingston, Aftei brief trip through Ireland 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 389 

they returned home. The health of the General was 
perfectly restored. 

When General Garfield returned to his home in 
Ohio, lie found that the Republicans of that State 
had adopted a pernicious platform of principles, the 
chief " plank " of which was one looking to the pay- 
ment of the bonds of the Government in paper currency ; 
and that they had already fought the Fall campaign on 
that issue. He instantly and most decidedly condemned 
that portion of the platform, for he had been from the 
outset, in Congress and out of it, a consistent and earnest 
advocate for "Honest Money." ' lie was opposed to 
" Greenbackism." and Inflation in any form. 

It was proposed to give the General a public recep- 
tion before he should return to Congress. Some of his 
friends, knowing his opinion on the subject of currency, 
cautioned him not to touch upon the finances in his ex- 
pected speech on that occasion. " The State is swept," 
they said, " into the Greenback current, and there is no 
stemming the torrent ; so say nothing on this subject, for 
the feeling is too strong to be resisted. An indiscreet 
word may cost you the renomination for Congress the 
next term." 

Again his friends had mistaken his character. He 
attended the reception, and when called upon to address 
the assemblage he made a speech that strongly reminded 
them of his candor and independence displayed in the 
Convention when called upon to explain his position in 
regard to the Wade-Davis letter. He spoke most decid- 
edly in favor of the honest payment of the public debt, 
and condemned the doctrine the of " Greenbackers " 



300 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

right in the face of the platform. Be said to the as- 
sembly : 

"Much as I value your opinions, I here denounce 
this theory that has worked its way into tip State as dis- 
honest, unwise and unpatriotic; and if I were offered a 
nomination and election for my natural life, from this 
district, on this platform, 1 should spurn it. If you 
raise the question <>f renominating me, let it be under- 
stood you can have my services only on the ground of the 
honesl payment of this debt and these bonds in coin, ac- 
cording to the letter and spirit of the contract." 

Garfield thus "took tin.' hull by the horns," showed 
his friends that Ids strength lay in his \mshorn locks of 
righteous principles, and returned to Ids duty at Wash- 
ington, unconcerned about his personal political future. 
Again his boldness and independence won for him a 
victory. He was re-nominated at the next convention. 
and re-elected by an overwhelming majority. 

Gi aeral Garfield was ever a consistent, unceasing and 
unwavering opponent of all "Soft money" delusions, and 
the linn advocate of specie payments and the strict fulfil- 
ment of the national obligation.-. The " Greenback craze" 
soon subsided in his district after his speech at the " Re- 
ception," and he was ever afterward- supported by his 
constituents, who regularly re-elected him byoverwhelm- 
majoriti 

Genera] Garfield was an earnest and active worker in 
the temperance cause. The following example of his 

practical methods used for promoting temperance is related 

by Mr. II. I. Baker, as given to him by a neighbor of 
< on. ( iartield. in Painsville, < »hio. 



JAMES A. &ABFIELD. 391 

" It was in 18G5 that the temperance people of Pains- 
villc were a good deal worked up over a beer-brewery run- 
ning full blast in their midst. They held meeting after 
meeting, and discussed all sorts of plans for getting rid 
of the obnoxious establishment, but all to no purpose, so 
far as any practical outcome was concerned. 

" During that time, General Garfield returned home, 
and attended the next temperance meeting. He was an 
earnest, enthusiastic temperance man. The old subject 
of the brewery came up. After listening a few moments, 
the General rose and said : 

" ' Gentlemen, it is the easiest thing in the world to 
dispose of that brewery.' 

"This announcement took them all by surprise. Sup- 
press in one hour the nuisance they had so long bothered 
their heads over ? Do in one hour what they failed to do 
in six months ? It seemed impossible. But he soon 
showed them that he meant business. 

" He went over to the brewery, and in less than an 
hour he had purchased the whole property and paid cash. 
He destroyed all the manufactured liquor, and all the ex- 
clusive brewing machinery. What disposal to make of 
the property was now the question. It did not lie idle 
long, however. 

" The next fall he converted the building and machin- 
ery into a large cider-mill, and made hundreds of barrels 
of cider. Not one drop of cider would he sell or give 
away, for he was too strict a temperance man to think it 
right to drink even cider ; but every barrel of it he kept 
till it had become cider vinegar, and then sold it. 

" The good people of the town were glad to learn that 
the property proved to be a good investment, and the 
General made it pay him well. After using the building 
four or five years he sold it to other parties, and moved 
upon his farm at Mentor, Lake county, Ohio." 



3»2 THE VJuUliAl'lir OF 



CHAPTER XVI. 

GARFIELd'8 FOREBODINGS. II [8 (.HEAT SPEECH ON THE 
FINANCK>. 

It appeared necessary to wholly reorganize the Stand- 
ing Committees at the opening of the Fortieth Congress. 
Genera] Garfield, in \the House and at public gatherings, 
had stood firm as an advocate of honesty in the pay- 
ment of tin' public debt. His strenuous opposition to 
what seemed to be the popular tendency toward 
an inflation of the paper currency and the payment 
of Government bonds in "Greenbacks," appeared to 
render it expedient for him to leave the Committee of 
Ways and Mian-;, and he was transferred to the Com- 
mittee on Military Affairs, of which he was made chair- 
man. It was constituted as follows: 

Jam i- A. Garfield, of Ohio. 
William A. Pile, of Missouri. 

Jokn 11. Kii.iiwi. of New York. 

1 1 i mm I ». \V \>m:i i:\, of Indiana. 

Benjamin R. Poweb, of Pennsylvania. 
Geenvllle M. Dodge, of Iowa. 

< h:i i \ II. RATJM, Of Illinois. 
ISAAC R. 1 1 \\\ kin-, of Tennessee. 
Ohaeles Sio.Ki w i .-. of New Jersey. 




ft? 



ft 

fcri 
O 






JAMES A. GARFIELD. 39/> 

So early as the beginning of the year (1867), General 
Garfield very clearly perceived the dangers which beset 
the country in its efforts to effect national reorganization ; 
through the currency heresy ; from radical differences of 
opinion on the subject of tariffs, and especially from the 
indulgence of prejudices and wild passions which, in 
many cases, dominated reason and even common sense. 
In his usual " New Year's Letter " to President Hinsdale 
he wrote : 

" I am less satisfied with the present aspect of public 
affairs than I have been for a long time. I find that many 
of the points and doctrines, both in general politics and 
finance, which I believe in and desire to see prevail, are 
meeting with more opposition than heretofore, and are in 
imminent danger of being overborne by popular clamor 
and political passion. 

"In reference to reconstruction I feel that if the 
Southern States should adopt the Constitutional Amend- 
ments within a reasonable time, we are literally bound to 
admit them to representation ; if they reject it, then I 
am in favor of striking for impartial suffrage, though I 
see that such a course is beset with grave dangers. 

"Now Congress seems determined to rush forward 
Avithout waiting even for the action of the Southern 
States, thus giving the South the impression, and our 
political enemies at home a pretext for saying that we 
were not in good faith when we offered the Constitutional 
Amendments 

" ileally there seems to be a fear on the part of many 
of our friends that they may do some absurdly extravagant 
thing to prove their radicalism. I am trying to do two 
tilings: dare to be a radical and not to be a fool, which, if I 
may judge by the exhibitions around me, is a matter of 
no small difficulty. 

"I wish the South would adopt the Constitutional 
15 



8ad THE BIOQRAPHt op 

Amendments .soon and in good temper. Perhaps they 
will. . . . 

*• Next, thf Supreme Court has decided the case I 
argued last winter, and the papers are insanely calling for 
the abolition of the court. 

"In reference to finance, I believe that the great 
remedy for our ills is an early return to specie payments, 
which tan only be effected by the contraction of our paper 
currency. There is a huge clamor against both and in 
favor of expansion. 

"You know my views on the tariff. I am equally as- 
saulted by the free traders and by the extreme tariff men. 
There is passion enough in the country to run a steam- 
engine in every village, and a spirit of proscription which 
keeps pace with the passion. My own course is chosen 
and it is quite probable it will throw me out of public 
life." 

As Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, 
General Garfield conducted a searching investigation into 
all the affairs of the Army, against the doings of which 
then- was much popular clamor, especially in the South. 
lie summoned before his committee some of the ablest 
and most expert officers of the army, whose testimony he 
carefully analyzed ; and in his report, which was very 
thorough and exhaustive in its array of facts, the general 
good conduct of the Army was so fully vindicated that 
the clamor Mas almost silenced. 

While Garfield was a Btrenuous advocate of the su- 
periority of the Civil to the Military Power, he was just 
BE Btrenuous an advocate of the rights and the exercise 
of the legitimate functions of the military is special cases 

where their power was necessary to effect the enforcement 
of the civil laws. He had no patience with "political 
generals," who were ready to bow in the performance of 



JAMMB A. (1AUF1ELD. 397 

their duties before " public opinion,'' in the States where- 
in rebellion had lately prevailed. In a speech which he 
delivered in the course of the debate on the subject of the 
reorganization of the Union, in January, 1868, he thus 
alluded to one of these generals, who was lending his aid 
to President Johnson, in his obstruction policy : 

"I will not repeat the long catalogue of obstructions 
which he [the President] has thrown in the way by virtue 
of the power conferred upon him in the Reconstruction 
law of 1867 ; but I will allude to one example where he 
has found in a major-general of the army a facile instru- 
ment with which more effectually to obstruct the work of 
reconstruction. This case is all the more painful because 
an otherwise meritorious officer, who bears honorable 
scars earned in battle for the Union, has been made a 
party to the political madness which has so long marked 
the conduct of the President. This General was sent into 
the district of Louisiana and Texas with a law of Congress 
in his hand, a law that commands him to see that justice 
is. administered among the people of that country, and 
that no pretense of civil authority shall deter him from 
performing his duty ; and yet we find that officer giving 
lectures in the form of proclamations and orders on what 
ought to be the relation between the civil and military 
departments of the Government. We see him issuing a 
general order in which he declares that the civil should 
not give way before the military. We hear him declaring 
that he finds nothing in the laws of Louisiana and Texas 
to warrant his interference with the civil administration of 
those States. It is not for him to say which should be 
first, the civil or the military, in that rebel community. 
It is not for him to search the defunct laws of Louisiana 
and Texas for a guide to his conduct. It is for him to 
obey the laws which he was sent there to execute. It is 
for him to aid in building up civil governments, ruther 
than preparing himself to le the Presidential candidate of 



89« TEE BIOGRAPHY OT 

the pfirty which gave him no sympathy when be vras gal- 
lantlj fighting the battles of the oountry." 

No part of the business of Congress failed tb receive 
the attention of General Garfield, but the inipressof his 
ability, industry and power was manifest on all. On 
financial matters, particularly, he was an ever vigilant and 
earnest observer and laborer, and he had much to <lo with 
great questions of tariffs, which frequently came before 
( longress. 

From the close of the war, Garfield had been an 
earnest and persistent advocate of the feasibility, the ex- 
pediency and the safety of the resumption of specie pay- 
ments by the bank- ami the Government. His record in 
Congress is full of evidences of this. When a bill was 
e < longress to suspend the power of the Secretary of 
the Treasury to contract the currency at the rate of 
four million dollars a month, he vehemently opposed the 

isure and offered the following resolution : 

•■ Resolved, That the bill for forbidding the further 
contraction of the currency be recommitted to the Com- 
mittee of Ways and .Means, and that the} be instructed to 
report to this house such legislative measures as shall most 
ily and safely lead to resumption of specie pay- 
ments." 

This, was in the Spring of 1^'> S . On the L5th of 
May lie made an elaborate speech <ni the Currency, which 
ranks among his greater intellectual efforts. In that 
speech, after directing attention to the changes in the 
current of public opinion upon various topics of public 
Interest that were then taking place, he discussed, in his 
aide manner, the following topics : 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 399 

"The Hard Times/* " From Peace to War/" "From 
War to Peace," "The Functions of Currency," " Rela- 
tion of Currency to Prices," " Increase of the Currency is 
Taxat ion," "Its Chief Burden falls on the Laborer,"' 
"Depreciated Currency stimulates Speculation and Over- 
trading," •• How much Currency is Needed ?"' '• Relation 
of Currency to Financial Panics, *' " Does the High Rate 
of Interest indicate an Insufficient Amount of Currency ?" 
"Scarcity of Currency in the West," "Inconvertible 
Paper Money lias no Fixed Value," "Paper Money Delu- 
sions,*' "Real Cause of the Reaction," "Our Past Expe- 
rience," " Colonial Paper," " Continental Currency," 
"Paper Money of the Revolution," "Provisions of the 
Constitution in Reference to Paper Money," " Necessity 
of a Settled Policy,' "What has the Fortieth Congress 
Done in Reference to this Subject ?" "The Contraction 
Policy," " Plan for Restoring Standard Values," and 
" English Precedents." 

The Secretary of the Treasury, believing this speech, 
if seen by proper persons in Europe, would strengthen the 
National credit, sent some copies abroad. It caused John 
Bright to propose General Garfield as a member of the 
Oobden Club, and he was elected. The following quota- 
tions embrace the most essential portions of this great 
speech : 

" I shall direct my remarks on this occasion to but one 
feature of our legislation. I propose to discuss the cur- 
rency and its relation to the revenue and business pros- 
perity of the country. 

" In April, 1861, there began in this country an indus- 
trial revolution, not yet completed, as gigantic in its pro- 
portions, and as far-reaching in its consequences, as the 
political and military revolution through which we have 
passed. As the first step to any intelligent discussion of 



400 THE HKjGBAVUY OF 

the currency, it is necessary to examine the character and 
progress of that industrial revolution. 

"The .war L860 was one of remarkable prosperity in 
all branches of business. For seventy years no Federal 
tax-gatherer had ever been seen among the laboring pop- 
ulation of t lie United States. Our public debt was less 
than sixty-five million dollars. The annual expenditures 
of the Government, including interest on the public debt, 
were less than sixty-four million dollars. The revenues 
from customs alone amounted to six-sevenths of the expen- 
ditures. The value of our agricultural products for that 
year amounted to $1,625,000,000. Our cotton crop alone 
was two billion one hundred and fifty-five million pounds, 
and we supplied to the markets of the world seven-eighths 
of all the cotton consumed. Our merchant marine en- 
gaged in foreign trade amounted to two million five hun- 
dred and forty-six thousand two hundred and thirty-seven 
tons, and promised soon to rival the immense carrying 
trade of England. 

" Let us now observe the effect of the war on the 
various departments of business. From the moment the 
first hostile gun was fired, the Federal and State Govern- 
ments became gigantic consumers. As far as production 
was concerned, eleven States were completely separated 
from the Union. Two million laborers, more than one- 
third of the adult population of the Northern States, were 
withdrawn from the ranks of producers, and became only 
consumers of wealth. The Federal Government became 
an insatiable devourer. Leaving out of account the vast 
Bums expended by States, counties, cities, towns, and 
individuals for the payment of bounties, for the relief of 
sick and wounded soldiers and their families, and omit- 
ting the losses, which can never be estimated, of property 
destroyed bj hostile armies, I shall speak only of expen- 
ditures which appear on the books of the Federal Treas- 
ury. Prom the 30th of June, L861, to the 30th of June, 
1865, there were paid out of the Federal Treasury 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 401 

$3,340,996,211, making an aggregate, during these four 
years, of more than $836,000,000 per annum. 

" From the official records of the Treasury Depart- 
ment it appears that, from the beginning of the American 
Eevolution in 1775 to the beginning of the late Rebellion, 
the total expenditures of the Government for all purposes, 
including the assumed war debts of the States, amounted 
to $2,250,000,000. The expenditures of four years of the 
rebellion were nearly $1,100,000,000 more than all the 
other Federal expenses since the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. The debt of England, which had its origin in the 
Eevolution of 1688, and was increased by more than one 
hundred years of war and other political disasters, had 
reached in 1793 the sum of $1,268,000,000. During the 
twenty-two years that followed, while England was en- 
gaged in a life and death struggle with Napoleon (the 
greatest war in history save our own), $3,056,000,000 
were added to her debt. 

'•' In our four years of war we spent $300,000,000 more 
than the amount by which England increased her debt in 
twenty-two years of war ; almost as much as she had in- 
creased it in one hundred and twenty-five years of war. 
Now, the enormous demand which this expenditure cre- 
ated for all the products of industry stimulated to an 
unparalleled degree every department of business. The 
plow, furnace, mill, loom, railroad, steamboat, tele- 
graph —all were driven to their utmost capacity. Ware- 
houses were emptied, and the great reserves of supply 
which all nations in a normal state keep on hand were 
exhausted to meet the demands of the great consumer. 
For many months the Government swallowed three mil- 
lions per day of the products of industry. Under the 
pressure of this demand, prices rose rapidly in every de- 
partment of business. Labor everywhere found quick and 
abundant returns. Old debts were canceled, and great 
fortunes were made. 

"For the transaction of this enormous business an 
increased amount of currency was needed ; but I doubt if 



402 THE PJOQIiAPHY OF 

any member of this House can be found bold enough to 
deny that the deluge of Treasury notes poured upon the 
country during the war was far greater even than the 
demands of business. Let it not be forgotten, however, 
that the chief object of these issues was not to increase 
the currency of the country. They were authorized with 
great reluctance, and under the pressure of overwhelming 
necessity, as a temporary expedient to meet the demands 
of the Treasury. They were really forced loans in the 
form of Treasury notes. By the act of July 17, 18G1, an 
issue of demand notes was authorized to the amount of 
$50,000,000. By the act of August 5, 1861, this amount 
was increased $50,000,000 more. By the act of February 
25, 1862, an additional issue of $150,000,000 was author- 
ized. On the 17th of the same month, an unlimited 
issue of fractional currency was authorized. On the 17th 
of January, 1863, an issue of $150,000,000 more was au- 
thorized, which was increased $50,000,000 by the act of 
March 3d of the same year. 

"This act also authorized the issue of one and two 
years' treasury notes, bearing interest at five per cent., to 
be a legal tender for their face, to the amount of $400,- 
000,000. By the act of June 30, 1864, an issue of six per 
cent, compound-interest notes, to be a legal tender for 
their face, was authorized to the amount of 8200,000,000. 
In addition to this, many other forms of paper obligation 
were authorized, which, though not a legal tender, per- 
formed many of bhe functions of currency. By the act 
of March 1, 1862, the issue of an unlimited amount of 
certificates of indebtedness was authorized, and within 
ninety days after the passage of the act there had been 
issued and were outstanding of these certificates more 
than $156,000,000. Of course these issues were not all 
outstanding at the same time, but the acts show how 
great was the necessity for loans during the war. 

"The law which made the vast volume of United 
States notes a legal ten. In- operated as an act of general 
bankruptcy. The man who loaned 11,000 in July, 1801, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 403 

payable in three years, was compelled by this law to accept 
at maturity, as a full discharge of the debt, an amount of 
currency equal in value to $350 of the money he loaned. 
Private indebtedness was everywhere canceled. Rising 
prices increased the profits of business, but this prosperity 
was caused by the great demand for products, and not by 
the abundance of paper money. As a means of transact- 
ing the vast business of the country, a great volume of 
currency was indispensable, and its importance cannot be 
well overestimated. But let us not be led into the fatal 
error of supposing that paper money created the business 
or produced the wealth. As well might it be alleged that 
our rivers and canals produce the grain which they float 
to market. Like currency, the channels of commerce 
stimulate production, but cannot nullify the inexorable 
law of demand and supply. 

" Mr. Chairman, I have endeavored to trace the prog- 
ress of our industrial revolution in passing from peace to 
Avar. In returning from war to jDeace all the conditions 
were reversed. At once the Government ceased to be an 
all-devouring consumer. Nearly two million able-bodied 
men were discharged from the Army and Navy and en- 
rolled in the ranks of the producers. The expenditures 
of the Government, which, for the fiscal year ending June 
30, 1865, amounted to $1,290,000,000, were reduced to 
$520,000,000 in 1806 ; to $346,000,000 in 1867 ; and, if 
the retrenchment measures recommended- by the Special 
Commissioner of the Revenue be adopted, another year 
will bring them below $300,000,000. 

"Thus, during the first year after the Avar the de- 
mands of the Federal Government as a consumer de- 
creased sixty per cent., and in the second year the decrease 
had reached seventy-four per cent., with a fair prospect 
of a still further reduction. 

"The recoil of this sudden change would have pro- 
duced great financial disaster in 1866, but for the fact 
that there was still open to industry the work of replacing 
the wasted reserves of supply, which, in all countries in a 



404 THE BIOGBAPHT OF 

healthy state of business, are estimated to be sufficient for 
two years. During 1866 the fall in price of all articles 
of industry amounted to an average of ten per cent. One 
year ag.> a table was prepared, at my request, by Mr. Ed- 
ward Young, in the office of the Special Commissioner of 
the Revenue, exhibiting a comparison of wholesale prices 
at X.w York in December, 1865, and December, 1866. 
>ws that in ten leading articles of provisions there 
was an average decline of twenty-two per cent., though 
I other breadstuffs remained nearly station- 
ary. On cotton and woolen goods, boots, shoes, and 
clothing the decline was thirty per cent. On the prod- 
ucts of manufacture and mining, including coal, cordage, 
iron, lumber, naval stores, oils, tallow, tin, and wool, the 
decline was twenty-five per cent. The average decline on 
all commodities was at least ten per cent. According to 
the estimates of the Special Commissioner of the Revenue 
iu his late report, the average decline during 1867 has 
amounted at least to ten per cent. more. 

•• During the past two year? Congress has provided by 
law for reducing internal taxation *1 00,000,000, and the 
; a few weeks ago has reduced the tax on manu- 
factures to the amount of $04,000,000 per annum. The 
repeal of the cotton tax will make a further reduction of 
120,000,000. State and municipal taxation and expendi- 
tures have also been greatly reduced. The work of re- 
placing these reserves delayed the shock and distributed 
its effects, but could not avert the inevitable result. 
During the past two years, one by one, the various de- 
part meiits of industry produced a supply equal to the 
demand. Then followed a glutted market, a fall in 
prices, and a on of business, by which thousands 

of laborers were thrown oui of employment. 

"If be added that the famine in Europe 

and the drought in many of the agricultural States of the 
Onion have kepi the price of provisions from falling as 
other commodities have fallen, we shall have a sufficient 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 405 

explanation of the stagnation of business and the unusual 
distress among our people. 

" This industrial revolution has been governed by laws 
beyond the reach of Congress. No legislation could have 
arrested it at any stage of its progress. The most that 
could possibly be done by Congress was to take advantage 
of the prosperity it occasioned to raise a revenue for the 
support of the Government, and to mitigate the severity 
of its subsecpnent pressure by reducing the vast machinery 
of war to the lowest scale possible. Manifestly nothing 
can be more absurd than to suppose that the abundance 
of currency produced the prosperity of 1863, 1864, and 
1865, or that the want of it is the cause of our present 
stagnation. 

" In order to reach a satisfactory understanding of 
the currency question, it is necessary to consider some- 
what fully the nature and functions of money or any sub- 
stitute for it. 

" The theory of money which formed the basis of the 
'mercantile system' of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries has been rejected by all leading financiers and 
political economists for the last seventy-five years. That 
theory asserted that money is wealth ; that the great ob- 
ject of every nation should be to increase its amount of 
gold and silver ; that this was a direct increase of national 
wealth. 

" It is now held as an indisputable truth that money is 
an instrument of trade and performs but two functions. 
It is a measure of value and a medium of exchange. 

" In cases of simple barter, where no money is used, 
we estimate the relative values of the commodities to be 
exchanged in dollars and cents, it being our only univer- 
sal measure of value. 

" As a medium of exchange, money is to all business 
transactions what ships are to the transportation of mer- 
chandise. If a hundred vessels of a given tonnage are just 
sufficient to carry all the commodities between two ports, 
any increase of the number of vessels will correspondingly 



406 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

decrease the value of each aa an instrument of commerce; 
any decrease below one hundred will correspondingly in- 
crease the value of each. If the number be doubled, each 
will earn but half its usual freight, will be worth but 
ball its former value for that trade. There is so much 
work to be done, and no more. A hundred vessels can do 
it all. A thousand can do no more than all. 

'• The functions of money as a medium of exchange, 
though more complicated in their application, are pre- 
cisely the Bame in principle as the functions of the vessels 
in the case I have supposed. 

" If we could ascertain the total value of all the ex- 
changes effected in this country by means of money in any 
year, and could ascertain how many dollars' worth of 
such exchanges can be effected in a year by one dollar in 
money, we should know how much money the country need- 
ed for the business transactions of that year. Any decrease 
below that amount will correspondingly increase the 
value of each dollar as an instrument of exchange. Any 
increase above thai amount will correspondingly decrease 
the value of each dollar. If that amount be doubled, 
each dollar of the whole mase will perform but half the 
amount of business it did before; will be worth but half 
its former value as a medium of exchange. 

"Recurring to our illustration : if, instead of sailing 

[gj steam were substituted, a much smaller 

tonnage would be required ; so, if it were found that 

1500,000,4 of paper, each worth seventy cents in gold, 

sufficient for the business of the country, it is equally 
evident that 1350,000,000 of gold substituted for the 
paper would perform precisely the same amount of busi- 

" It should be remembered also, that any improve- 
ment in the mode of transacting business, by which tho 
actual use of money is in part dispensed with, reduces the 

total amount needed by the country. How niuch has 
been accomplished in this direction by recent improve* 




JdOItfTIJfG GREETING- F,Y THE (PRESIDE jfT'S 
WIFE J1JTG) QjflTJGHXEIl. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 409 

ments in banking may be seen in the operations of the 
clearing-houses in our great cities. 

" The records of the New York Clearing- House show 
that from October 11, 1853, the date of its establishment, 
to October 11, 1867, the exchanges amounted to nearly 
$180,000,000,000 ; to effect which, less than 18,000,000,000 
of money were used, an average of about four per cent. ; 
that is, exchanges were made to the amount of $100,000- 
000 by the payment of $4,000,000 of money. 

"It is also a settled principle that all deposits in 
banks, drawn upon by checks and drafts, really serve the 
purpose of money. 

" The amount of currency needed in the country de- 
pends, as we have seen, upon the amount of business 
transacted by means of money. The amount of business, 
however, is varied by many causes which are irregular 
and uncertain in their operation. An Indian war, defi- 
cient or abundant harvests, an overflow of the cotton 
lands of the South, a bread famine or war in Europe, and 
a score of such causes entirely beyond thereach of legislation, 
may make money deficient this year and abundant next. 
The needed amount varies also from mouth to month in 
the same year. More money is required in the autumn, 
when the vast products of agriculture are being moved to 
market, than when the great army of laborers are in 
winter-quarters awaiting the seedtime. 

" When the money of the country is gold and silver, it 
adapts itself to the fluctuations of business without the 
aid of legislation. If, at any time, we have more than is 
needed, the surplus flows off to other countries through 
the channels of international commerce. If less, the de- 
ficiency is supplied through the same channels. Thus the 
monetary equilibrium is maintained. So immense is the 
trade of the world that the golden streams pouring from 
California and Australia in the specie circulation, are soon 
absorbed in the great mass and equalized throughout the 
world, as the waters of all the rivers are spread upon the 
surface of all the seas. 



UO TUB BIOGRAPHY OF 

'• No! bo, however, with an inconvertible paper cur- 
rency. Excepting the specie used in payment of cus- 
toms and the interest on our public debt, we are cut 
olT from the money currents of the world. Our currency 
i tnbles lather the waters of an artificial lake, which lie 
in stagnation or rise to full hanks at the caprice of the 
gatekeeper. 

" Cold and diver abhor depreciated paper money, and 
will not keep company with it. If our currency be more 
abundant than business demands, not a dollar of it can go 
abroad ; if deficient, not a dollar of gold will come in to 
Bupply the laek. There is no Legislature on earth wise 
enough to adjust such a currency to the wants of the 
country. 

" Let us examine more minutely the effect of such a 
currency upon prices. Suppose that the business trans- 
actions of the country at the present time require $350,- 
000,000 in gold. It is manifest that if there are just 
$350,000,000 of legal-tender notes, and no other money in 
the country, each dollar will perform the full functions of 
a gold dollar, so far as the work of exchange is concerned. 
Now, business remaining the same, let $350,000,000 more 
<>( the same kind of notes be pressed into circulation. 
The whole volume, as thus increased, can do no more 
than all the business. Each dollar will accomplish just 
half the work that a dollar did before the increase; but 
as the nominal dollar is fixed by law, the effect is shown 
in prices being doubled. It requires two of these dollars 
bo make the same purchase thai one dollar made before 
the increase, li would require some time for the business 
of the country to adjusl itself to the new conditions, and 
greal derangemenl of values would ensue; but the result 
would at la-t be reached in all transactions which are con- 
trolled by tbe law of demand and supply. 

•• V> mch change of val ties can occur without cost. Some- 
bod} 1 1 1 * i - 1 pay for il. Who pays in this case ? We have 

'hat doubling the currency finally results in reducing 
the purchasing power of each dollar one half; hence 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 411 

every man who held a legal-tender note at the time of the 
increase, and continued to hold it till the full effect of the 
increase was produced, suffered a loss of fifty per cent, of 
its value ; in other words, he paid a tax to the amount of 
half of all the currency in his possession. This new 
issue, therefore, by depreciating the value of all the cur- 
rency, cost the holders of the old issue §175,000,000 ; and 
if the new notes were received at their nominal value at 
the date of issue, their holders paid a tax of £175,000,000 
more. Xo more unequal or unjust mode of taxation 
could possibly be devised. It would be tolerated only by 
being so involved in the transactions of business as to be 
concealed from observation ; but it would be no less real 
because hidden. 

"But some one may say: 'This depreciation would 
fall upon capitalists and rich men, who are able to bear 
it' 

"If this were true, it would be no less unjust. But, 
unfortunately, the capitalist would suffer less than any 
other class. The new issue would be paid in the first 
place in large amounts to the creditors of the Government ; 
it would pass from their hands before the depreciation 
had taken full effect, and, passing clown step by step 
through the ranks of middlemen, the dead weight would 
fall at last upon the laboring classes in the increased price 
of all the necessaries of life. It is well known that in a 
general rise of prices wages are among the last to rise. 
This principle was illustrated in the report of the Special 
Commissioner of the Revenue for the year 18G6. It is there 
shown that from the beginning of the war to the end of 
1866, the average price of all commodities had risen ninety 
per cent. Wages, however, had risen but sixty per cent. 
A day's labor would purchase but two-thirds as many of 
the necessaries of life as it would before. The wrong is 
therefore inflicted on the laborer long before his income 
can be adjusted to his increased expenses. It was in view 
of this truth that Daniel Webster said, in one of his 
ablest speeches ; 



U2 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

"'Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring 
Masses of mankind, none has been more effectual than 
thai which deludes them with paper money. This is the 
inosl effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man's 
field i-\ in- sweat of the poor man's brow. Ordinary 
tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation, these bear lightly 
on the happiness of the mass of the community, compared 
with a fraudulent currency and the robberies committed 
by depreciated paper." 

" The fraud committed and the burdens imposed upon 
the people, in the case we have supposed, would be less 
intolerable if all business transactions could be rcalh ad- 
justed to the new conditions ; but even this is impossible. 
All debt- would be canceled, all contracts fulfilled by pay- 
ment in these notes — not at their real value, but for their 
face. All salaries fixed by law, the pay of every soldier in 
the army, of every sailor in the navy, and all pensions 
and bounties, would be reduced to half their former value. 
In these cases the effect is only injurious. Let it never be 
forgotten that every depreciation of our currency results 
in robbing the one hundred and eighty thousand pen- 
sioners, maimed heroes, crushed and bereaved widows, 
and homeless orphans, who sit helpless at our feet. 

"And whd would be benefited by this policy? A 
pretense of apology might be offered for it. if the Gov- 
ernment could save what, the people lose. Bui th< 
tern lacks the supporl of even thai selfish and immoral 
consideration. The depreciation caused by the over-issue 
in the case we have supposed, compels the Government to 
pay jusl thai per cent, more on all the contracts it makes. 

on all the loan- it negotiates, on all the supplies it pur- 
chases : and, to crown all, it musl at last redeem all its 
legal-tender notes in gold coin, dollar for dollar. The 

advocates of repudiation have no! yel been bold enough 
t<j deny this. 

" I have thus far considered the influence of a redun- 
dant paper currency on the country when its trade and 
industry are in a healthy and normal state. I now call 



JAMES A. d Mi FIELD. 413 

attention to its effect in producing an unhealthy expan- 
sion of business, in stimulating speculation and extrava- 
gance, and in laying the sure foundation of commercial 
revulsion and wide-spread ruin. This principle is too well 
understood to require any elaboration here. The history 
of all modern nations is full of examples. One of the 
ablest American writers on banks and banking, Mr. 
Gouge, thus sums up the result of his researches : 

" ' The history of all our bank pressures and panics 
has been the same in 1825, in 1837, and in 1843 ; and the 
cause is given in these two simple words — universal ex- 
pansion.' 

" There still remains to be considered the effect of 
depreciated currency on our trade with other nations. 
By raising prices at home higher than they are abroad, 
imports are largely increased beyond the exports ; our 
coin must go abroad ; or, what is far worse for us, our 
bonds, which have also suffered depreciation, and are pur- 
chased by foreigners at seventy cents on the dollar. 
During the whole period of high prices occasioned by the 
war, gold and bonds have been steadily going abroad, 
notwithstanding our tariff duties, which average nearly 
fifty per cent, ad valorem. More than five hundred mil- 
lion dollars of our bonds are now held in Europe, ready 
to be thrown back upon us when any war or other suffi- 
cient disturbance shall occur. No tariff rates short of 
actual prohibition can prevent this outflow of gold while 
our currency is thus depreciated. During these years, 
also, our merchant marine steadily decreased, and our 
ship-building interests were nearly ruined. 

"Our tonnage engaged in foreign trade, which 
amounted in 1859-'60 to more than two and a half million 
tons, had fallen in 1865-'66 to less than one and a half 
millions — a decrease of more than fifty per cent.; and 
prices of labor and material are still too high to enable 
our shipwrights to compete with foreign builders, 



Ill 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 



"Prom the facts already exhibited in reference to our 
industrial revolution, and from the foregoing analysis of 
the nature and functions of currency, it is manifest : 

"1. That the remarkable prosperity of all industrial 
enterprise during the war was not caused by the abun- 
dance of currency, bul by the unparalleled demand for 
every producl of labor. 

•' ".'. That the greal depression of business, the stagna- 
tion of trade, the 'hard times ' which have prevailed dur- 
ing the pasl year, and whioh still prevail, have not been 
caused by an insufficient amount of currency, but mainly 
by the great falling off of the demand for all the products 
of labor compared with the increased supply since the 
return from war to peace. 

" I should he satisfied to rest on these propositions 
without further argument, were it not that the declara- 
tion is so often and so confidently made by members of 
this House, that there is not only no excess of currency, 
l»u* thai there is not enough for the business of the coun- 
try. I Bubjoin a table, carefully made up from the offi- 
cial records, showing the amount of paper money in the 
United States at the beginning of each year from 1834 to 
L868 inclusive. The fractions of millions are omitted : 



1834, 


|95,l ,000 


L849, 


|] ir>, 000,000 


1835, 


104,000, i 


1850, 


131,000,000 


L836, 


1 lo,tioo,000 


1851, 


155,000,000 




1 19,000,000 


1852, 


150,000,000 


1 


1 16,000,000 


Is;,::. 


140,000,000 




135,000,000 


1854, 


205,000,000 


1- lo. 


107,000,000 


1855, 


is;, odd, 000 


1841, 


107,0110,000 


1856, 


196,000,000 




noo. 000 


1857, 


215,000,000 




000.000 


1858, 


185,000,000 


IM 1. 


000,000 


1859, 


lit::, ,000 




90,000,000 


I860, 


207,000,000 


1846, 


[05, 1,000 


1861, 


L'O'J. OOO.OOO 


I- 1 ,. 


106,000,000 


L862, 


'-'IS. 000,000 


■ 


129,000,1 


1863, 


529,000,000 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 415 



1861, $636,000,000 

1865, 948,000,000 

1866, 919,000,000 



1867, $852,000,000 

1868, 767,000,000 



" To obtain a full exhibit of the circulating medium 
of the country for these years, it would be necessary to 
add to the above the amount of coin in circulation each 
year. This amount cannot be ascertained with accuracy : 
but it is the opinion of those best qualified to judge, that 
there were about two hundred million dollars of gold and 
silver coin in the United States at the beginning of the 
rebellion. It is officially known that the amount held by 
the banks from 1860 to 18G3 inclusive averaged about 
ninety-seven million dollars. Including bank reserves, 
the total circulation of coin and paper never exceeded 
four hundred million dollars before the war. Excluding 
the bank reserves, the amount was never much above 
three hundred million dollars. During the twenty-six 
years preceding the war the average bank circulation was 
less than one hundred and thirty-nine million dollars. 

"It is estimated that the amount of coin now in the* 
"United States is not less than $250,000,000. When it is 
remembered that there are $106,000,000 of coin in the 
Treasury, that customs, duties and interest on the public 
debt are paid in coin alone, and that the currency of the 
States and Territories of the Pacific coast is wholly 
metallic, it will be seen that a large sum of gold and sil- 
ver must be added to the volume of paper currency in 
order to ascertain the whole amount of our circulation. 
It cannot be successfully controverted that the gold, sil- 
ver, and paper used as money in this country at this time, 
amount to $1,000,000,000. If we subtract from this 
amount our bank reserves, which amounted on the 1st of 
January last to $162,500,000, and also the cash in tltc 
national Treasury, which at that time amounted to 
$134,000,000, we still have left in active circulation more 
than $700,000,000. 

"It rests with those who assert that our presenl 



416 THE BIOGRAPHY <>h' 

amount of currency i£ insufficient to show thai one hun- 
dred and fifty per cent, more currency is new needed for 
the business of the country than was needed in 18G0. To 
escape this difficulty, it has been asserted, by some honor- 
able members, thai the country never had currency 
enough: and that credit was substituted before the war 
to supply the lack of money. It. is a perfect answer to 
this, thai in many of the States a system of free hanking 
prevailed ; and such hanks pushed into circulation all the 
money they could find a market for. 

•• The table 1 have submitted shows how perfect an 
index the currency is of the healthy or unhealthy condi- 
tion of business, and that every great financial crisis, dur- 
ing the period covered by the table, has been preceded by 
a greal increase, and followed by a great and sudden de- 
crease in the volume of paper money. The rise and fall 
of mercury in the barometer is not more surely indicative 
of an atmospheric storm, than is a sudden increase or de- 
crease of currency indicative of financial disaster. With- 
in the period covered by the table there were four greal 
financial and commercial crises in this country. They 
occurred in is:;;, 1841, L854, and 185T. Now observe the 
change in the volume of paper currency for those years. 

"On the l.-i da] of January, 1837, the amouni had 

risen to II L9,< ,000, an increase of nearly fifty percent. 

in three years. Before the end of that year, the reckless 
expansion, speculation, and overtrading which caused the 
increase had resulted in terrible collapse ; and on the 1st 
of January, L838, the volume was reduced to $] 1.6,000,000. 
Wild land-', which speculation had raised to fifteen and 
twenty dollars per acre, fell to one dollar and a half and 
two dollars, accompanied by a corresponding depn 
in all branches of business. Immediately after the crisis 
of L841, the hank circulation decreased twenty-five per 
e, Hi., and by the end of L842 was reduced to $58,500,000, 
a decrease of nearly fifty per cent. 

•• \\ thi beginning of 1853 the amount was $146,000,- 
000. Speculation and expansion had swelled it to $205,- 



JAMES A. GARFTKLD. * | I , 

000,000 by the end of that year, and thus introduced the 
crash of 1854. At the beginning of 1857 the paper money 
of the country reached its highest point of inflation up 
to that time. There were nearly $215,000,000, but at the 

end of that disastrous year the volume had fallen to 
§135,000,000, a decrease of nearly forty per cent, in less 
than twelve months. In the great crashes preceding 1837 
the same conditions are invariably seen — great expansion, 
followed by a violent collapse, not only in paper money, 
but in loans and discounts ; and those manifestations have 
always been accompanied by a corresponding fluctuation 
in prices. 

"In the great crash of 1819, one of the severest this 
country ever suffered, there was a complete prostration of 
business. It is recorded in Niles's Register for 1820 that, 
in that year, an Ohio miller sold four barrels of flour to 
raise live dollars, the amount of his subscription to that 
papier. "Wheat was twenty cents per bushel, and corn 
ten cents. About the same time Mr. Jefferson wrote to 
Nathaniel Macon : 

" 'We have now no standard of value. I am asked 
eighteen dollars for a yard of broadcloth which, when we 
had dollars, I used to get for eighteen shillings.' 

"But there is one equality of such a currency more re- 
markable than all others — its strange power to delude 
men. The spells and enchantment of legendary witch- 
craft were hardly so wonderful. Most delusions cannot 
be repeated ; they lose their power after a full exposure. 
Not so with irredeemable paper money. From the days 
of John Law its history has been a repetition of the same 
story, with only this difference : no nation now resorts to 
its use except from overwhelming necessity ; but whenever 
any nation is fairly embarked, it floats on the delusive 
waves, and, like the lotus-eating companions of Ulysses, 
wishes to return no more. 

"Into this very delusion many of our fellow-citizens 



418 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

and many members of this House have fallen. Hardly a 
member of either House of the Thirty-seventh or Thirty- 
eighth Congress spoke on the subject who did not de- 
plore the necessity of resorting to inconvertible paper 
money, and protest againsl its continuance a single day 
beyond the inexorable necessities of the war. The re- 
marks of Mr. Fessenden, when he reported the first legal- 
bender bill from the Finance Committee of the Senate, in 
February, 1862, fully exhibit the sentiment of Congress 
at that, time. He assured the country that the measure 
was not to be resorted to as a policy ; that it was what it 
professed to be, a temporary expedient ; that he agreed 
with the declaration of t lie Chairman of the Committee 
of Ways and Means of t lie House, that it was not contem- 
plated to issue more than £150,000,000 of legal-tender 
notes. 

"This, I repeat, was the almost unanimous sentiment 
of the Thirty-seventh Congress ; and though subsequent 
uecessit\ compelled both that and the Thirty-eighth Con- 
to make new issues of paper, yet the danger was 
always confessed, and the policy and purpose of speedy 
resumption were kept steadily in view. So anxious were 
the members of the Thirty-eighth Congress that the 
temptation to new issues should not overcome them or 
their successors, that tiny bound themselves, by a kind of 
financial temperance pledge, that there never should be a 
further increase of legal-tender notes. Witness the fol- 
lowing clause of the loan act of June 30, 18G4 : 

"'Section 2. . . . Provided, That the total 
anioiini of bonds and Treasury notes authorized by the 
fiisi and second sections of this act shall not exceed 
•400,000,000 in addition to the amounts heretofore issued ; 
nor shall tic total amounl of United States notes, issued 
or to be issued, ever exceed 1400,000,000, and such addi- 
tional Bum, not exceeding $50, 000,000, as may be tempo- 
rarily required for the redemption of temporary loan.' 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 419 

"Here is a solemn pledge to the public creditors, a 
compact with them, that the Government will never issue 
non-interest-pay ing notes beyond the sum total of $450,- 
000,000. When the war ended, the Thirty-ninth Con- 
gress, adopting the views of its predecessors on this 
subject, regarded the legal-tender currency as a part of 
the war machinery, and proceeded to reduce and with- 
draw it in the same manner in Avhich the army and navy 
and other accompaniments of the war were reduced. 
Ninety-five gentlemen who now occupy seats in this hall 
were members of this House on the 18th of December, 
1865, when it was resolved, by a vote of 144 yeas to 6 
nays : 

" 'That this House cordially concurs in the views of 
the Secretary of the Treasury in relation to the necessity 
of a contraction of the currency, with a view to as early a 
resumption of specie payments as the business interests of 
the country will permit ; and we hereby pledge cooper- 
ative action to this end as speedily as practicable.' 

" Since the passage of that resolution the currency 
has been reduced by an amount less than one-sixth of its 
volume, and what magic wonders have been wrought in the 
opinions of members of this House and among the financial 
philosophers of the country ! A score of honorable gen- 
tlemen have exhausted their eloquence in singing the 
praises of greenbacks. They insist that, at the very least, 
Congress should at once set the printing-presses in motion 
to restore the $70,000,000 of national treasure so ruth- 
lessly reduced to ashes by the incendiary torch of the 
Secretary of the Treasury. Another, claiming that this 
would be a poor and meagre offering to the offended paper 
god, introduces a bill to print and issue $140,000,000 
more. The philosopher of Lewiston, the Democratic 
Representative of the Ninth District of Illinois [Mr. 
Ross], thinks that a new issue of $700,000,000 will, for 
the present, meet the wants of the country. Another, 
perceiving that the National Bank notes are dividing the 



420 Tilt: BIOGRAPHY OF 

honors with greenbacks, proposes to abolish these offend- 
ing corporations, and. in Lieu of their notes, issue |300,- 
000,000 more in greenbacks, and thus increase the active 
circulation by over one hundred millions, the amount 
now held as bank reserves. And finally, the Democratic 
masses of the Wesl are rallying under the leadership of 
the coming man, the young statesman of Cincinnati, 
who proposes to cancel with greenbacks the 81,500,000,000 
of five-twenty bunds, and. with his election to the Presi- 
dency, usher in the full millennial glory of paper money; 
And this is the same George H. Pendleton who denounced 
as unconstitutional the law which authorized the first 
issue of greenbacks, and concluded an elaborate speech 
against the passage of the bill in 1862 with these words : 

" ' You send these notes out into the world stamped 
with irredeemability. You put on them the mark of 
Cain, and, like Cain, they will go forth to be vagabonds 
and fugitives on the earth. What, then, will be the con- 
sequence ? It requires no prophet to tell what will be 
their history. The currencj will be expanded ; prices 
will be inflated ; fixed values will depreciate ; incomes 
will be diminished ; the savings of the poor will vanish ; 
the hoardings of the widow v\ill melt away ; bonds, niort- 
. and notes, everything of fixed value, will lose their 
value : everything of changeable value will be appreciated ; 
the necessaries of life will rise in value. . . . Con- 
traction will follow. Private ruin and public bankruptcy, 
either with or without REPUDIATION, will inevitably fol- 
low/ 

■■ The chief cause of this new-born zeal for paper 
nioiny is the same as thai which led a member of the 
Continental Congress to exclaim : 

" • Do you think, gentlemen, that I will consent to 

Load my constituents With laves, when we can send to the 

printer and L r ei a wagon-load of money, one quire of which 
will pay fur the whole ? ' 




trl 

trl 






I 



THE BTOG li APR Y <>F 428 

" The simple fact in the case is that Congress went 
resolutely and almost unanimously forward in the policy 
of gradual resumption of specie payments and a return to 
bhe old standard of values, until the pressure of falling 
prices and hard times began to be felt ; and now many 
are shrinking from the good work they have undertaken, 
are turning back from the path they so worthily resolved 
to pursue, and are asking Congress to plunge the nation 
deeper than ever into the abyss from which it has been 
struggling so earnestly to escape. Did any reflecting man 
suppose it possible for the country to return from the 
high prices, the enormous expansion of business, debt, 
and speculation occasioned by the war, without much de- 
pression and temporary distress ? 

" The wit of man has never devised a method by 
which the vast commercial and industrial interests of a 
nation can suffer the change from peace to Avar, and from 
war back to peace, without hardship and loss. The 
homely old maxim, ' What goes up must come down,' 
applies to our situation with peculiar force. The 'coming 
down ' is inevitable. Congress can only break the fall 
and mitigate its evils by adjusting the taxation, the ex- 
penditures, and the currency of the country to the 
changed conditions of affairs. This it is our duty to do 
with a firm and steady hand. 

" Much of this work has already been done. Our 
national expenditures have been very considerably re- 
duced, but the work of retrenching expenditures can go, 
and should go, much further. Very many, perhaps too 
many, of our national taxes have been removed. But if 
this Congress shall consent to break down the dikes, and 
let in on the country a new flood of paper money for the 
temporary relief of business, we shall see all the evils of 
our present situation return after a few months with re- 
doubled force. 

"It is my clear conviction that the most formidable 
danger with which the country is now threatened is a 
large increase in the volume of paper money. 
16 



484 77/a: BIOQRAPH? OP 

"Shall we learn nothing from experience ? Shall the 
warnings of the past be unheeded ? "What other nation 
has so painfull] Bpelled out, letter by letter and word by 
word, the terrible meaning of irredeemable paper money, 
whether known by the name of colonial bills, Continental 
currency, or notes of dishonored banks? Most of the 
colonies had suffered untold evils from depreciated paper 
before the Revolution. Massachusetts issued her first 
bills of credit in 1690, to meet a war debt, ami, after 
sixty years of vain and delusive efforts to make worthless 
paper serve the purposes of money, found her industry 
perishing under the weight of colony bills equal in nom- 
inal value to 811, 000,000, which, though made a legal 
tender and braced up by the severest laws, were worth 
but twelve per cent, of their face ; and, under the lead of 
Hutchinson, a far-sighted and courageous statesman, in 
1750 resumed specie payment, canceled all her bills, and 
by law prohibited the circulation of paper money within 
her borders, and made it a crime punishable by a fine of 
£100 for any Governor to approve any bill to make it a 
legal tender. 

•• For the next quarter of a century Massachusetts en- 
joyed the blessings of a Bound currency. Rhode Island 
clung to the delusion man} years longer. More than one 
hundred pages of Arnold's history of that colony arc de- 
voted to portraying the distress and confusion resulting 
from this cause alone. The history of every colony that 
! bills is a repetition of the same sad story. 

" The financial history of the Revolution is too famil- 
iar to need repetition here, but there art' points in that 
history of which an American Congress cannot be too 
often reminded. Nowhere else were all the qualities of 
irredeemable paper monej so fully exhibited. From the 
i mission of 12,000,000 in L775, till the last, in 1781, 

when $360,000,000 had been i-Hied. t here a p| >ea red t be 
B purpose, perpetually renewed but a I \va_\ s broken, to re- 
strict the amount and issue 00 more. Each issue was to 
be the last. But notwithstanding the enormous volume 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 425 

reluctantly put iu circulation, our fathers seemed to 
believe that its value could be kept up by legislation. 
They denounced in resolutions of Congress. the first de- 
preciation of these bills as the work of enemies ; and in 
January, 1776, resolved : 

" ' That if any person shall hereafter be so lost to all 
virtue and regard for his country as to refuse to receive 
said bills in payment, &c, lie shall be treated as an en- 
emy, and precluded from all trade or intercourse with the 
inhabitants of these colonies.' 

" But they found before the struggle ended that the 
inexorable laws of value were above human legislation ; 
that resolutions cannot nullify the truths of the multipli- 
cation table. 

" The bills passed nearly at par until the issues ex- 
ceeded nine millions. At the end of 1776 they were worth 
seventy-five per cent, of their nominal value ; at the end 
of 1777, twenty-five ; at the end of 1778, sixteen ; at the 
end of 1779, two and a half ; and at the end of 1780 they 
were worth but one cent on the dollar. Four months 
later $500 in Continental bills were selling for one dollar 
in specie. Peletiah Webster, in 1790, said : 

" ' The fatal error that the credit and currency of 
Continental money could be kept up and supported by 
acts of compulsion, entered so deep in the minds of Con- 
gress and all departments of administration through the 
States, that no consideration of justice, religion, or pol- 
icy, or even experience of its utter inefficiency, could 
eradicate it ; it seemed a kind of obstinate delirium, 
totally deaf to every argument drawn from justice and 
right, from its natural tendency and mischief, and from 
common justice, and even from common sense. . . . 
This ruinous principle was continued in practice for five 
successive years, and appeared in all shapes and forms, 
i. e., legal-tender acts, limitation of prices, in awful and 
threatening declarations, and in penal laws. . . . 
Many thousand families of full and easy fortune were 
ruined by these fatal measures, and lie in ruins to-day 



436 Till: BIOGR 'fin OF 

(1790), withonl the least benefit to the country or to the 
great and noble cause in which they were then engaged.' 

••In summing up the evils of the Continental cur- 
rency, after .-peaking of the terrible hardships of the war, 
the destruction of property by the enemy, who at times 

during its progress held eleven out of the thirteen State 
capitals, Mr. Webster, who had seen it all, said : 

" ' Yet these evils were not as great as those which 
were caused by Continental money and the consequent 
irregularities of the financial system. We have Buffered 
from this cause more than from every other cause of 
calamity ; it has killed more men, pervaded and cor- 
rupted the choicest interests of our country more, and 
done more injustice, than even the arms and artifices of 
our enemies.' 

" But let it never be forgotten that the fathers of the 
lit ion saw, at last, the fatal error into which they 
had fallen, and even in the midst of their great trials 
i red to the young nation then struggling for its ex- 
istence its standard of value, its basis for honest and 
honorable indust ry. 

"In L781, Robert Morris was appointed Superinten- 
dent of Finance. He made a return to specie payments 
the condition of his acceptance ; and, on the £2d of May, 
I ress declared, 'That the calculation of the expenses 
of the present .campaign shall be made in solid coin;' 

and — 

" • Thai experience having evinced the inefficiency of 
all attempts to Bupporl the credit of paper monej by 
compulsory acts, it i- recommended to such States where 
laws making paper lulls a tender yet exist to repeal the 
same.' 

"Thus were the financial interests of the nation 
rescued from dishonor and ul ter ruin. 

•• Tie- state of the currency from the close of the war 
to the establishment of the Government under the Oonsti- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 427 

tution was most deplorable. The separate States had 
been seized with the mania for paper money, and were 
rivaling each other in the extravagance of their issue 
and the rigor of their financial laws. One by one they 
were able, at last, to conquer the evils into which paper 
money had plunged them. In 1780 James Madison wrote 
from Richmond, to General Washington, the joyful news 
that the Virginia Legislature had, by a majority of 81 to 
17, voted— 

" 'Paper money unjust, impolitic, destructive of pub- 
lic and private confidence, and of that virtue which is the 
basis of republican government.' 

"The paper money of Massachusetts was the chief 
cause of Shays's rebellion. The paper money of Rhode 
Island kept that State for several years from coming into 
the Union. 

"Nearly half a century afterward, Daniel "Webster, 
reviewing the financial history of the period now under 
consideration, said : 

"'From the close of the war to the time of the adop- 
tion of this Constitution, as I verily believe, the people 
suffered as much, except in loss of life, from the dis- 
ordered state of the currency and the prostration of com- 
merce and business as they suffered during the war.' 

" With such an experience, it is not wonderful that 
the framers of our Constitution should have undertaken 
to protect their descendants from the evils they had them- 
selves endured. 

"By reference to the Madison Papers, volume three, 
pages 1343-'4:6, it will be seen that, in the first draft of 
the Constitution, there was a clause giving Congress the 
[lower ' to borrow money and emit bills on the credit of 
the United States.' 

"On the 16th of August, 1787, during the final re- 
vision, Gouverneur Morris moved to strike out the pi 



42b THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

authorizing the emission of bills. Mr. Madison declared 
that he voted to strike it out so as to ' cut off the pretext 
for a paper currency, and particularly for making the 
bills a tender either for public or private debts.' Mr. 
Ellsworth ' thought this a favorable time to shut and bar 
the door against paper money. The mischief of the 
various experiments which had been made was now fresh 
in the public mind, and had excited the disgust of all the 
respectable part of America,' Mr. Eead 'thought that 
the words, if not struck out, would be as alarming as the 
mark of the Beast in Revelation.' Mr. Langdon had 
rather reject the whole ' plan than retain the three words 
"and emit bills." ' 

" The clause was stricken out by a vote of nini States 
to two. Twelve days later, Roger Sherman, remarking 
that ' this is a favorable crisis for crushing paper money,' 
moved ' to prohibit the States from emitting bills of 
credit, or making anything but gold and silver coin a 
tender in payment of debts.' This clause was placed in 
the Constitution by a vote of eight States to two. Thus 
our fathers supposed they had protected us against the 
very evil which now afflicts the nation." 

General Garfield concluded his speech as follows : 

"For my own part, my course is taken. In view of 
all the facts of our situation, of all the terrible experiences 
of the past, both at home and abroad, and of the united 
testimony of the wisest and bravest statesmen who have 
lived and labored during the last century, it is my firm 
conviction that any considerable increase of the volume of 
our inconvertible paper money will shatter public credit, 
will paralyze industry, and oppress the poor ; and that 
the gradual restoration of our ancient standard of value 
will lead us, by the safest and surest paths, to national 
prosperity and the steady pursuits of peace." 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 429 



CHAPTER XVII. 

GARFIELD ON THE CENSUS, FINANCES AND APPROPRIATIONS. 

In connection with Garfield's great speech, copious 
extracts of which are given in the last preceding chapter, 
the following curious bit of history may be here appro- 
priately introduced. The report of the debates in the 
Congressional Globe reveals it. 

On the twenty-third of July (1868), General Garfield 
asked permission to make a personal explanation of fifteen 
minutes. It was granted, and he sent to the clerk's desk 
to be read some remarks made by Thaddeus Stevens of 
Pennsylvania a few days before, in which he had asserted 
that it w T as the original intention to pay the bonds, not in 
coin " but in " money," and that " rather than go with the 
Republicans if they held to coin payments, he would vote 
for the other side, Frank Blair and all." He had de- 
nounced " coin payment " as a " swindle upon the tax- 
payers of the country." 

General Garfield said that at the time these remarks 
were made by Mr. Stevens, he had expressed his surprise 
at the utterance, and had referred to the fact that in 1862, 
in the debate on the bill authorizing the Five-twenty 
bonds, Mr. Stevens himself had distinctly declared that 
these bonds were payable in gold, and that such was the 
unanimous opinion and intention of Congress at that 
time. 

Garfield next quoted some remarks made by Mr. 



430 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Stevens on the previous day, in which he denounced that 
gentleman and others as having wholly perverted his 
meaning in L862, and re-affirmed that he had always con- 
tended for the payment of the bonds in " money," that is, 
in paper money. Mr. Stevens had, with much warmth, 
charged these " pervertors of his meaning" with "vil- 
lainy," and warned the people against putting faith in the 
publications of demagogues. 

Garfield then proceeded to make copious citations 
from the record to show that it was not only the original 
intention of Congress to pay the bonds in com, but that 
Mr. Stevens stated, five distinct times, that the principal 
of the bonds was payable in gold. When General Gar- 
field had closed this explanation, Mr. Stevens said that 
when the proper time came, he would show that there 
was not "a word of truth in what Mr. Garfield had said." 

As no answer could be made, the " proper time " never 
came. Mr. Stevens' " Greenback craze " in the latter 
years of his life appears to have clouded his memory, per- 
verted Ids judgment, and involved him in great incon- 
sistencies. 

A \'rw days before this passage at arms with Mr. 
Stevens, General Garfield had made a speech on the taxa- 

i <mi of United States bonds, in which he enunciated and 
defended his fundamental propositions on that subject : 

•■ I i! i. 'That the Law creating the bonds specially de- 
clares them .exempt from all State and municipal taxation,' 

and 

"Second, 'Thai even if the law were silent on this 
Bubject, the Constitution of the United States interferes 
to prevent it.' n 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 431 

He said that in a long line of judicial decisions extend- 
ing over nearly half a century, it had been again and 
again declared by the Supreme Court that such taxation 
is forbidden by the Constitution. 

General Garfield now began to feel indications of pop- 
ular support in his position in opposition to the scheme 
for taxing Government bonds, and for virtually repudia- 
ting the public debt by paying it in irredeemable paper 
money, which he had not perceived earlier in the session. 
The nomination of General Grant for the presidency a 
few weeks before on a decidedly anti-repudiation plat- 
form, was a hopeful sign of the running of the popular 
current in the direction of honest}'. A still more hopeful 
sign was the refusal of the Democratic National Conven- 
tion to renominate George II. Pendleton, the able advo- 
cate of the repudiation scheme. His increasing confidence 
in the public intelligence and honesty was manifested by 
the following closing portion of this speech : 

" I desire to say, in conclusion, that in my opinion all 
these efforts to pursue a doubtful and unusual, if not dis- 
honorable policy in reference to our public debt, spring 
from a lack of faith in the intelligence and conscience of 
the American people. Hardly an hour passes when we do 
not hear it whispered that some such policy as this must 
be adopted, or the people will by and by repudiate 
the debt. For my own part, I do not share that distrust. 
The people of this country have shown, by the highest 
proofs human nature can give, that wherever the path of 
duty and honor may lead, however steep and rugged it 
may be, they are ready to walk in it. They feel the burden 
of the public debt, but they remember that it is the price 
of blood — the precious blood of half a million brave men who 
died to save to u? ill that makes life desirable or property 
secure. I believe they will, after a full hearing, discard 



432 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

all methods of paying their debts by sleight-of-hand, or 
by any scheme which crooked wisdom may devise. If 
public morality did not protest againsl any such plan, 
enlightened public selfishness would refuse its sanction. 
Let us be true to our trust a few years longer, and the 
oexl generation will he here with its seventy-live millions 
of population and its sixty billions of wealth. To them 
the debi that then remains will be alight burden. They 
will pay the last bond according to the letter and spirit of 
the contract, with the same sense of grateful duty with 
which they will pay the pensions of the few surviving 
soldiers of the great war for the Union.' 1 ' 

On the 30th of May, previous to the delivery of this 
speech, General Garfield, notwithstanding the great pres- 
sure of his duties in Congress, pronounced an eloquent ora- 
tion at Ai-lington, in sight of the National Capitol, on the 
occasion of the animal decoration with fresh flowers, of 
the graves of the remains of thousands of Union soldiers 
which lie buried there. It was the former home of the 
Custisfamily and of General Robert E. bee. the final com- 
mander-in-chief of the Confederate Army. It is now a, 
National cemetery. General Garfield concluded his ora- 
tion on that occasion with the following eloquent sen- 
tence- : 

"What other spot so lining for their last resting-place 
as this, under the shadow of the Capitol saved by their 
vah>r ? Here, where fche grim edge of battle joined ; here, 
where all the bope and Eear and agony of their country 
red ; here lei them rest, asleep on the uatiou's heart, 
entombed in the nat ion's love ! 

''The view from this spot hears some resemblance to 
that which greets the eye at Rome. In sight of the 
Capitolinc Hill, up and across the Tiber, and overlooking 
the city, is u hill, not rugged nor lofty, but known as the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 433 

Vatican Mount. At I ho beginning of the Christian era, 
an imperial circus stood on its summit. There gladiator 
slaves died for the sport of Koine, and wild beasts fought 
with wilder men. In that arena a Galilean fisherman 
gave up his life, a sacrifice for his faith. No human life 
was ever so nobly avenged. On that spot was reared the 
proudest Christian temple ever built by human hands. 
For its adornment the rich offerings of every clime and 
kingdom have been contributed. And now, after eighteen 
centuries, the hearts of two hundred million people turn 
toward it with reverence when they worship God. As the 
traveler descends the Apennines, he sees the dome of St. 
Peter's rising above the desolate Campagna and the dead 
city, long before the seven hills and ruined palaces appear 
to his view. The fame of the dead fisherman has outlived 
the glory of the eternal City. A noble life, crowned with 
heroic death, rises above and outlives the pride and pomp 
and glory of the mightiest empire of the earth. 

" Seen from the western slope of our Capitol, in direc- 
tion, distance, and appearance, this spot is not unlike the 
Vatican Mount, though the river that flows at our feet is 
larger than a hundred Tibers. Seven years ago, this Avas 
the home of one who lifted his sword against the life of 
his country, and who became the great Imperator of the 
rebellion. The soil beneath our feet was watered by the 
tears of slaves, in whose hearts the sight of yonder proud 
Capitol awakened no pride, and inspired no hope. The 
face of the goddess that crowns it was turned toward the 
sea, and not toward them. But, thanks be to God, this 
arena of rebellion and slavery is a scene of violence and 
crime no longer ! This will be forever the sacred moun- 
tain of our Capitol. Here is our temple ; its pavement is 
the sepulchre of heroic hearts ; its dome, the bending 
heavens ; its altar candles, the watching stars. 

" Hither our children's children shall come to pay 
their tribute of grateful homage. For this are we met 
to-day. By the happy suggestion of a great society, as- 
semblies like this are gathering at this hour in every State 



484 77//; BIOGRAPHY OF 

in the Union. Thousands of Bold iers are to-day turning 
aside in the march of life to visil the silent encampments 
of dead comrades who once fought by their side. 

"'From many thousand homes, whose light was put 

out when a soldier fell, there go forth to-day, to join 

solemn processions, loving kindred and friends, 

from whose hearts the Bhadovr of grief will never be lifted 

until the light of the eternal world dawns upon them. 

" Ami here are children, little children, to whom the 
war left no father but the Father above. By the most 
sacred right, theirs is the chief place to-day. They come 
with garlands to crown their victor fathers. I will delay 
the coronation no longer." 

At the opening of the Forty-first Congress Special 
Session (1869-^71), General Garfield was appointed 
Chairman of the Committee on Banking and Currency. 
This appointment was a recognition by the Speaker of 
his ability, research and wide knowledge of all financial 
subject-. This had become one of the most important 
Committees of the House. It was constituted as follows; 

.1 \mi- A. < . \i;i ii.i.n, of Ohio. 
John Lynch, of Maine 
Norm \\ B. .1 1 dd, of Illinois. 

John < '«>i:i i:.\, of Indiana. 
Wobthington C. Smith, of Vermont. 
John B. I'auki b, of Pennsylvania. 

l-i: \i i. I i. Lash, Of North Carolina. 

Sami.. S. ( !ox, of .New York, 
Thomas B. Jones, of Kentucky. 

1 [i ib vii" 0. In EtOHABD, of Illinois. 

General Garfield was also afterwards appointed on the 
Select Committee on the Ninth Census. Although the 




J\dl[8. (2>ij\ E(DSOJf. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 437 

great burden of putting the work-of the Superintendent 
of the Census and of his assistant in proper shape was 
laid upon Garfield, he, at the request of the Speaker, 
yielded, out of courtesy, to Mr. Stokes, of Tennessee, and 
took the second place on the Committee, which was com- 
posed of the following representatives : 

William B. Stokes, of Tennessee. 
James A. Gakfield, of Ohio. 
Nathaniel B. Banks, of Massachusetts. 
William B. Allison, of Iowa. 
Addison J. Laflin, of New York. 
Shelly M. Cullom, of Illinois. 
Martin M. Wilkinson, of Minnesota. 
Richard J. IIaldeman, of Pennsylvania. 
John G. Schumackeb, of New York. 

General Garfield was also a member of the Committee 
on Rules, which was composed as follows : 

James G. Blaine (the Speaker), of Maine. 
Nathaniel P. Banks, of Massachusetts. 
Thomas W. Ferky, of Michigan. 
James A. Garfield, of Ohio. 
James Brooks, of New York. 

On all these committees General Garfield took the 
position of a " wheel-horse." His labors were prodigious, 
and productive of the greatest benefit. On January 19, 
1869, he had introduced a resolution, " That a Select 
Committee of Seven be appointed to inquire and report 
to the House what legislation is necessary to provide for 
taking the Ninth Census, as provided by the Constitu- 



488 Tin: B10QRAPH7 OF 

tioii." The resolution was adopted, and Garfield was ap- 
pointed Chairman of the Committee ; but there had nut 
beeh time to perform their duties well before the close of 
the Fortieth < longress, in March. 

At the first (special) session of the Forty-first Cor 
gress, held in the Spring of L869, another Select Com- 
mittee on the Census was appointed. Garfield was its 
chief worker, bnt political and personal considerations 
the chairmanship to Mr. Stokes, of Tennessee, as we 
have seen, with the understanding thai his Ohio colleague. 
mus to do the work. For this duty, no man was better 
qualified than he. His economical and financial studies 
before had led him to a careful examination of statistics. 
He had studied them as a science, and pushed his inves- 
tigations into all branches of the subject. He had al.su- 
lutelv exhausted the literature of statistics in America, 
and had turned to the lessons to be taught by England, 
France and Belgium. On tin; 6th of April, 1869, he 
made an able speech on the subject, in the course of 
which he gave utterance to the following thoughts on the 
value of statistics : 

"This is the age of statistics, Mr. Speaker. The word 
( statistics ' itself did nol exist until L749, whence we date 
the beginning of a new science on which modern legislation 
iiiu-t be I'.i-o.l, in order to he permanent. The treatise of 
Aehenwall, the German philosopher who originated the 

. [aid tlw foundation of man) of the greatesi reforms 
in modern Legislation. Statistics are State fact-, facts for 
the consideration of statesmen, Buch as thej maj no! 
neglect with safety. It has been truly said thai -statistics 
are history in repose; history is statistics in motion.' If 

i gled the one. we shall deserve to he neglected b] 
the other. The legislator without statistic* is like the 



JAMES A. A I! FIELD. 439 

mariner at sea without the compass. Nothing can safely 
be committed to his guidance. A question of fearful im- 
portance, the well-being of this Republic, has agitated 
this House for many weeks. It is this : Are our rich men 
growing richer, and our poor growing poorer ? And how 
can this most vital question be settled, except by the most 
careful and honest examination of the facts ? Who can 
doubt that the next census will reveal to us more impor- 
tant truths concerning the situation of our people than 
any census ever taken by any nation ? By what standard 
could we measure the value of a complete, perfect record 
of the condition of the people of this country, and such 
facts as should exhibit their burdens and their strength ? 
Who doubts that it would be a document of inestimable 
value to the legislator and the Nation ? How to achieve 
it, how to accomplish it, is the great question. 

"We are near the end of a decade that has been full 
of earthquakes, and amid the tumult we have lost our 
reckoning. Wo do not yet comprehend the stupendous 
changes through which we have passed, nor can we until 
the whole held is re-surveyed. If a thousand volcanoes 
had been bursting beneath the ocean, the mariner would 
need new charts before he could safely sail the seas again. 
We are soon to set out on our next decade with a thousand 
new elements thrown in upon us by the war. The way is 
trackless. Who shall pilot us ? The war repealed a part 
of our venerable census law. One schedule was devoted to 
slaves. Thank God ! it is useless now. Old things have 
passed away, and a multitude of new things arc to be here 
recorded ; and not only tiie things to be taken, but the 
manner of taking them, requires a thorough remodeling 
at our hands. If this Congress does not worthily meet 
the demands of this great occasion, every member must 
bear no small share of the odium that justly attaches to 
men who fail to discharge duties of momentous impor- 
tance, which once neglected can never be performed." 



440 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Garfield's Census Committee labored with great assi- 
duity through sessions embracing forty days, and he intro- 
duced a matured bill on the subject and supported it by 
an able speech on December 16, L869. The bill passed 
the House but, owing chiefly to the personal antagonism 
of Senators, it was lost in the Senate. It presented a 
greatly-improved plan for taking the census, but failing 
to become a law, the old plan, with slight modifications, 
was adopted. $ut Garfield's plan formed the basis of 
that adopted for taking the census in L880. 

Meanwhile, the conflict on the currency question had 
become more and more intense. Garfield had introduced 
into Congress (Dec. 14, 1868) a bill to legalize gold con- 
tracts, and it became a part of General Schenk's more 
comprehensive measure embodied in a bill (January 20, 
1869 ) entitled " To Strengthen the Public Credit and 
Relating to Gold Contracts." This bill passed both 
Houses, but President Johnson gave it a "pocket veto." 
that is, did not approve it nor return it with his objec- 
tions. It was re-introduced at the first Session of the 
Forty-firs! Congress i March 1 •> >, was passed, and was the 
firs! A<-t approved by President Grant. This, which 
stood as a bulwark of the public credit for ten years, was 
as follow- : 

•• Be it enacted //// the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives of the I' nihil States of America, in Congress as- 
sembled, That, in order to remove any doubt as to the 
purpose of the Government to discharge all just oMi- 
gations to the public creditors, and to settle conflicting 
questions and interpretations of the laws l.\ virtue of 
which such obligations have been contracted, it is hereby 
provided and declared that the faith of the United States 
is solemnly pledged to the payment in coin or its equiva- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 441 

lent of all the obligations of the United States not bearing 
interest, known as United States notes, and of all the 
interest-bearing obligations of the United States, except 
in cases where the law authorizing the issue of any such 
obligation has expressly provided that the same may be 
paid in lawful money or other currency than gold and 
silver. But none of said interest-bearing obligations not 
already due shall be redeemed or paid before maturity, 
unless at such time United States notes shall be converti- 
ble into coin at the option of the holder, or unless at such 
time bonds of the United States bearing a lower rate of 
interest than the bonds to be redeemed can be sold at par 
in coin. And the United States also solemnly pledges its 
faith to make provision at the earliest practicable period 
for the redemption of the United States notes in coin." 

In support of this important bill General Garfield 
made the following vigorous speech on March 3, 1869 : 

"Now, sir, I favor the first section of this bill, be- 
cause it declares plainly what the law is. I affirm again, 
what I have often declared in this hall, that the law does 
now require the payment of these bonds in gold. I hope 
I may without impropriety refer to the fact that during 
the last session I proved, from the record in this house, 
and in the presence of the author of the law by which 
these bonds were authorized, that five distinct times in 
his speech, which immediately preceded the passage of 
the law, he declared the five-twenty bonds were payable, 
principal and interest, in gold, and that every member who 
spoke on the subject took the same ground. The law 
was passed with that declaration uncontradicted, and it 
went into effect stamped with that declaration by both 
houses of Congress. That speech, made on the eve of 
the Presidential campaign, was widely circulated through- 
out the country as a campaign document, and those who 
held the contrary were repeatedly challenged to refute its 
statements. I affirm that its correctness was not success- 



442 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

fully denied. Not only Congress so understand and de- 
olare, but every Secretary of the Treasury from that day 
to this has declared that these bonds are payable in gold. 
The authorized agents of the Government sold them, and 
the people bought them, with this understanding. 

"The Government thus bound itself by every obli- 
gation of honor and good faith, and it was not until one 
year after the passage of the law thai any man in Con- 
gress raised even a doubt on the subject. The doubts 
since raised were raised mainly for electioneering pur- 
poses, and the question was referred to the people for 
arbitrament at the late Presidential election. After the 
fullest debate ever had on any great question of National 
politics, in a contest in which the two parties fairly and 
squarely joined issue on the very point, it was solemnly de- 
cided by the great majority which elected General Grant 
that repudiators should be repudiated, and that the faith 
of the Nation should be preserved inviolate. 

•• We are, therefore, bound by fche pledged faith of the 
Nation, by the spirit and meaning of the law, and finally 
by the voice of the people themselves, to resolve all doubts 
and Bettle the credit of the United States by this explicit 
declaration of the national will. The action of the House 
on this bill has already been hailed throughout the world 
as the dawn of better days for the finances of the Nation, 
and every Inarkel has shown a wonderful improvement of 
our credit. \\ e could this day refund our debt on terms 
more advantageous to the Government by $120,000,000 
than we could have done the day before the passage of 
this bill by the House. Make it a law, and a still greater 
improvement will result. 1 can in no way better indicate 
in\ views of the propriety of passing the second section of 
this Kill than by reminding the House thai I introduced 
this proposition in a separate bill on the 10th of Febru- 
ary, L868, and its passage has been inure generally de- 
manded bj the people and press of the country than any 
other financial measure before Congress. 

"The principle involved in this Bection is simply this: 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 443 

to make it possible for gold to come into this country and 
to remain here. Gold and silver are lawful money of the 
United States, and yet the opponents would have us make 
it unlawful for a citizen to make and enforce contracts 
which he may hereafter make, to pay gold when he has 
received gold or its equivalent as the consideration of his 
contract. The very statement of this doctrine ought to 
be its sufficient refutation. But the minds of gentlemen 
are vexed with the fear that this section will be an engine 
of oppression in the hands of creditors. If any new safe- 
guards can be devised that are not already in this section 
I know not what they are. Whenever this law is carried 
out in its letter and spirit, no injustice can possibly re- 
sult. The whole power of the law is in the hands of the 
creditor, and he alone is supposed to be in danger of 
suffering wrong. 

" In the moment that remains to me I can do no more 
than to indicate the grounds on which the justice of this 
measure rests. It is a great and important step toward 
specie payments, because it removes the unwise and op- 
pressive decree which almost expatriates American gold 
and silver from the country. It will not only allow our 
own coin to stay at home, but it will permit foreign coin 
to flow hither from Europe. More than $70,000,000 of 
our gold are going abroad every year, in excess of what 
comes to us, and at the same time in eight kingdoms of 
Europe there are nearly $500,000,000 of idle gold ready 
to be invested at less than three per cent, interest. In 
the Bank of England and the Bank of France there has 
been for more than a year an average of more than 
*:;<>o,000,000 of bullion, and most of that time the bank 
rate of interest has been less than two per cent. Who 
can doubt that much of this gold will find its way here, 
if it can be invested without committing the fortunes of 
its owners to the uncertain chances of unconvertible paper 
.money ? But the passage of this bill will enable citizens 
to transact their business on a fixed and certain basis. It 
will give stability and confidence to trade, and pave the 



ill THE BIOGBAPEY OF 

\\.i\ for specie payments. The Supreme Court has de- 
cided thai this ie uow the Law, but let us put it on the 
Btatute-book as a notice to the people and to prevent un- 
necessary lil igation." 

CTnder the lead of General Garfield another important 
step was soon taken in the direction of sound currency 
and resumption. There was a general complaint that the 
currency was insufficient in quantity to meet the demands 
of business. The Western and Southern men, denounced 
as unfair the geographical distribution of national banks 
under the law of 1864, the preponderance being in the 
older States. They did not consider that much the 
larger amount of the banking capital of the country was 
in those States. 

As no more banks could be organized under the law 
which limited the total capital to three hundred million 
dollars, the malcontent,-; clamored for authority for unre- 
stricted banking. General Garfield clearly saw that if the 
complaining States had more capital for banking than 
they were allowed opportunities to employ, it would be just 
to give them the coveted facilities; if not (as he believed), 
the cry for more banks would speedily become absurd. 
Be introduced a bill (which passed) to provide for the re- 
demption of the three per cent, temporary Loan Certifi- 
cates and for an increase in National Bank note-. 

This bill provided thai fifty-four million dollars in 
national rmtes mighl be issued to banking associations, in 
addition to the three hundred million dollars already au- 
thorized, the same to be furnished to " banks organized, 
or to be organized, in those States and Territories having 
than their proportion under the existing apportion- 
ment," It wa al o provided thai the Secretary of the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. MB 

Treasury, under certain circumstances, might withdraw 
twenty-five million dollars of circulation from certain of 
the existing hanks, and apportion the same among the 
States and Territories having less than their fair pro- 
portion. 

In support of this bill, General Garfield made a very 
able speech on June 7, 1870. It was entitled, in the 
pamphlet form, " Currency and the Banks." In that 
speech he presented his leading doctrines concerning 
Money and the Currency, and an elaborate view of his 
re-distributing scheme. On June IT he made another 
speech in support of the bill. 

While this bill was pending the critics, in and out of 
Congress, were in opposition to each other. They seemed 
to be at sea on an ocean with which they were not 
familiar. One party of the opposers declared that the 
scheme would prove to be, in its operations, a severe con- 
traction of the currency ; the other party declared that it 
would result in inflation. Garfield denied the truth of 
both assertions, declaring that it neither favored contrac- 
tion or inflation. As he had anticipated, the complaining 
States had very little, if any, money to put into the bank- 
ing business. They did not claim the new facilities 
offered them. The bill was passed on July 12, 1870, but 
financial matters in the complaining States stood as before. 

This stubborn fact afforded General Garfield and his 
" hard money" friends an opportunity to retort when the 
"soft money" men clamored for more currency, "Why 
did not the South and West accept what was held out to 
them by the Act of July 12, 1870 \ To this there could 
be no answer. In his second speech on that bill he felici- 
tously met the eulogists of paper currency who extolled its 



146 Till- BIOGRAPHI OF 

virtues on the plea that ir could not be exported like gold, 
and would not go abroad as gold would, by the following 
printed remark : 

"It is reported of an Englishman who was wrecked 
ou a st range shore that, wandering along the coast, he 
came to a gallows with a victim hanging upon it. and that 
he fell down on his knees and thanked (iod that lie ;it last 
beheld a sign of civilization, lint this is the first time I 
ever heard a financial philosopher express his gratitude 
that we have a currency of such bad repute that other 
nations will not receive it; he is thankful that it is not 
exportable. We have a great many commodities that are 
in such a condition that they are not exportable. Moldy 
Hour, rusty wheat, rancid butter, damaged cotton, addled 
eggs, and spoiled goods generally are not exportable. 
Bui it never occurred to me to be thankful for this 
putrescence. It is related in a quainl German book of 
humor that the inhabitants of Schildeberg, finding that 
other towns, with more public spirit than their own. had 
erected gibbets within their precincts, resolved thai the 
town of Schildeberg should also have a gallows; and one 
patriotic member of the town council offered a resolution 
that the benefits of this gallows should be reserved exclu- 
sively for the inhabitants of Schildeberg." 

General Garfield's labors in the Forty-first Congress 
were greater, perhaps, and his able speeches more numer- 
ous, than in any other in which he sat. especially during 
the la ion. lb' had done an immense amount of 

Committee Bervice, besides engaging constantly in the 
ordinary business of Congress. One of the most im- 
portant, difficull and trying of the labors of his Com- 
mitteeon Banking and Currency was that of investigating 
rases that led to the unusual ami extraordinary Quo 
tuatioi Id in the city of New Fork, from the 21sl 



JAJfUB A. <l Mill ELD. n: 

to the 27th of September, 1809, which they wen- in- 
structed to make. 

The very nature of the operations, the implication 
of persons in high station in the reckless gold specula- 
tions, and the charges made by Democratic politicians 
that President Grant and his family were engaged in 
them, and were a party in a financial conspiracy, ren- 
dered the services of the Committee both difficult and 
important, The good name of the Republic required 
that the President should be convicted or vindicated. 
The security of honest business also demanded that the 
light of truth should be allowed to expose the operations 
in gold speculations to the scrutiny of every man. 

The Committee worked thoroughly and fearlessly, and 
in an able report of authenticated facts made to the House, 
on March 1, 1870, not only much light was thrown upon 
the methods of stock and gold gambling in Wall Street, 
but the exoneration of the President from all complicity 
in these transactions was full and complete. 

On the adjournment of Congress, General Garfield 
hastened to the quiet of his rural home, which was always 
a paradise on earth to him, and on August 6 (1870), lie 
wrote as follows to Colonel A. F. Kockwell, from Hiram : 

" I have at last reached home, in the green fields and 
pure air of the country, and for the first time in many 
months have a few days of comparative rest now before 
the opening of the fall campaign. 

"My work during the last Congressional year has been 
harder than ever before. I gave eighty days' hard work last 
summer and fall to the census, and, though I carried my 
bill successfully through the House, it failed in the Senate. 
Then I spent forty days on the Gold Panic Investigation 
and Report, nearly all the work of which I did. Then I 



THE BIOGH i /'//)• OF 

gavethreeor four weeks' hard work to the Tariff Bill, 
and more than that amount to the Currency Bill, which I 
had charge of, and which created a long and strong com- 
bat. Add to this all the usual outside work and two cases 
in the Supreme Court, one of which I argued and won, 
and yon will sec that it Idled my days and many of my 
nights- with about a close grubbing as I was capable of 
performing. On the whole, 1 have done as much as I 
had any reason to hope 1 should. 

•• I u;i- wry much obliged for your discussion of the 
Indian affairs. You can sec how nearly impossible it is 
for a member of Congress, nearly a thousand miles away 
from the scene of Indian events, and knowing nothing 
but what he learns from vague and contradictory reports, 
to understand the real situation, and to provide wise and 
efficient means for managing a subject so difficult and so 
impossible to handle by general laws or regulations. I 
have from the first been in favor of the transfer of the 
Indian Bureau to the War Department; but the Piegan 
massacre and the personal quarrel of which you speak 
prevented the transfer. [ twice got the bill through the 
House. I .-hall take the liberty to write to Secretary Cox 
and quote some passages from your letter.'"' 

At the beginning of the Forty-third Congress (1871- 
"7"'. General Garfield was placed at the head of the 
Committee on Appropriations, which was composed as 

follow.- : 

.1 AMI - A. ( i Aklll'l.h, of < )hio. 

El '.]ni 1 1 Ail ., of Maine 

William A. Wheeler, of New York. 
( 'n mm i - O'Ni Hi., of Pennsylvania. 
lh\i:\ II. Starkweather, of Connecticut. 

Wli l.l AM I KBRIDG] . of IoWU. 

d \mi B N . 1A N i.k. of Indiana. 





fig 

1 * 





JAMh's A. GARFIELD. 451 

Isaac C. Pabker, of Missouri. 
Samuel S. Marshall, of Illinois. 
Thomas Swann, of Maryland. 
John Hancock, of Texas. 

As during the previous Congress, Garfield was also 
one of the five members of the Committee on Rules of 
the House. The Committee on Appropriations, during 
that Congress, though not standing first on the list of 
committees, was really the most important, for its duties 
were in continual demand, a fact shown by the circum- 
stance that the Committee had the floor of the House 
one-third of the time. It prepared no less than twelve 
important bills, and carried them through the House. 

The bulk of the labor involved in bringing about this 
result was chiefly performed by General Garfield. The 
Committee was organized at the Short Session of 1871. 
General Garfield induced them to hold a Special Session 
in the Fall before the meeting of Congress, partly to save 
time, and partly to prepare the way for some valuable 
reforms that were already shaping themselves in his 
mind. President Hinsdale has given a summary of 
General Garfield's work in this connection, as follows : 

" First. His Studies on the Subject of Appropriation; 

" Second. His relations to the Committee and to the 
House ; 

" Third. The reforms that he brought about. 

" First, his Studies : 

" Once more Mr. Garfield resorted to Europe for her 
lessons. He studied very carefully both the origin and the 
growth of the British and French budgets. He looked 
closely into the annual budgets of both countries in all their 
stages, and noted their relation to the work of govern- 
17 



45fl THE It W<Ui A PUT OF 

ment. He also carefully read the Budget speeches of the 
English Chancellors of the Exchequer for many years. 

Besides these more general studies, he went through the 
history of our own appropriations from L789, finding that 
the method of appropriation had followed the well-known 
evolutional law. At first all the appropriations made by 
Congress for a year were put into one hill, to he expended 
by the departments. Some principal points and items 
were fixed by law, hut large discretionary powers were 
given to the heads of the departments, not only in refer- 
ence to the number of subordinates but also in reference 
to items of expenditure. 

" Next came the breaking up of the one bill into bills. 
The first proper Annual Appropriation bill, in the present 
sense, came in 1823. Others followed in 1826/28, and '44. In 
1847 the annual appropriations were made in nine separate 
bills. Others were added from time td time until 1862, 
when the differentiating process ceased : there were now 
twelve bills — Pensions, Legislative, Executive and .Judicial, 
Consular and Diplomatic, Army, Navy, Military Academy, 
Post-Office, Fortifications, Indian, Sundry Civil, Defi- 
ciency, and Rivers and Harbors. At this time the main 
features of our present method of appropriations had 
appeared. Much, however, then remained to be done in 
making the appropriations more special, and in taking 
from executive officers their great discretionary powers. 
The control of the public money by Congress needed to be 
more direct, minute, and rigid. Considerable progress in 
the right direction was made from 1862 to 1871, especially 
while .Mr. Dawes of Massachusetts held the chairmanship 
of the ( lommii tee. 

"But the method was still imperfect. In the first 
place, the appropriations needed to be more minutely 
analyzed in the bills. 'Then there were two kinds of appro- 
priations — annual and permanent. The first are explained 

by their designation ; the others were often indefinite in 

amount, as well as permanent in character. Frequently 
the law appropriated so much money to a given purpose 



JAMBA A. GARFIELD. 453 

as might be necessary. For years the Printing Bureau of 
the Treasury, sometimes employing twelve hundred men 
and women, and expending three million dollars, was sup- 
ported from a permanent appropriation of one per cent, 
of all securities issued in the fiscal year. Mr. Garfield 
found that nearly one-half of the expenses of the Govern- 
ment were provided for by these permanent appropria- 
tions, Congress exercising no direct control over them. 
Besides, unexpended balances of appropriations had been 
accumulating in the bureaus from the beginning of the 
Government. Thus, if one hundred thousand dollars was 
appropriated for a specific purpose, and any part of it 
remained unexpended at the end of the fiscal year, this 
balance stood on the books of the Treasury to the credit 
of the bureau, and could be used at any time for the pur- 
pose named. In 1872, when these balances wore covered 
into the Treasury, they amounted to $174,000,000. Mr. 
Dawes had led in a movement to cut off this dangerous 
abuse ; but the work of reform was still far from complete 
when Mr. Garfield took the chairmanship of the Commit- 
tee. 

" There were also other abuses, the results of Con- 
gressional inaction or vicious action, that called loudly 
for reform. Still, an adequate idea of the work to be 
done has not been given. Many appropriations, as the 
result of prodigal legislation in and following the war, 
were excessive. These needed to be reduced, not reck- 
lessly, by cutting off this or that with a blow of the knife, 
but considerately, after comprehensive study of all the 
fiscal operations of the Government. "What is more, that 
was the day of " claims,'" both great and small. Prodigal 
legislation, the spread of communistic ideas, the losses of 
the South in the war, had brought forth an enormous 
host of men bent on finding their way into the public 
Treasury. These were to be resisted. Now the reader is 
in a position to form an adequate idea of the work before 
the Committee, and especially before its Chairman, in 
1871. 



454 THE BTOOUM'll) OF 

" Second, Mr. Garfield's relations to the Committee 
and to t he House. 

"At the meeting of the Committee in the fall of 1871, 
and subsequently as they matured, Chairman Garfield 
spread before Ins associates his ideas on the whole subject. 
He strove at the outset to call out the best energies of 
<\vr\ man. The twelve great bills, as respected their 
preparation, introduction, and management in the House, 
were apportioned among the nine members, he taking the 
larger number. The member having a bill in charge was 
to manage it on the floor, and his fellow-members were to 
rally to his support when support was needed. The work 
of the Committee was both defensive and offensive. As 
defensive, the men with claims and schemes were to be 
repelled. Still, as many just claims were presented, much 
winnowing and sifting was called for. As offensive, the 
Committee had to carry, often in the face of great oppo- 
sition, their reform measures. Perhaps no committee 
ever worked together in the service of the country more 
effectively and harmoniously. When the appropriations 
were under consideration, the members of the Committee, 
and especially the Chairman, were on their feet a large 
share of the time. Still it was a service that did not give 
large opportunity for such speeches as 'go to the coun- 
try, 'and impress the popular imagination; but it con- 
sumed endless ability, energy, and patience in the study, 
in committee, and on the floor in running debate. Here 
\\ ma\ be said, the work had been so well done in the va- 
cation of L871 that six bills were introduced the first day 
of the session ; and afterward they always came from the 
Committee with commendable promptitude. 

"Third, the reforms thai were effected. 

"The classification of the purposes for which money 
wa- to be expended, and the specification of the amounts, 
were carried onl much more minutely than ever before. 
Numerous and great discretionary powers of executive 
officers over the expenditures were withdrawn. With the 
exception of the interest on tliv public debt, which is nee 



JAMB'S A. GARFIELD. 455 

essarily provided for in the acts authorizing the loans, 
the expenses of the Smithsonian Institution, which come 
from the great trust confided hy Mr. Smithson to Con- 
gress, and others of small importance, the permanent ap- 
propriations were wholly cut off. By successive steps, 
the unexpended balances were all covered into the Treas- 
ury ; and it is now the law that any surplus of appropri- 
ations for any object remaining at the end of the fiscal 
year, unless it is needed to execute contracts already 
made, shall at once lapse to the Treasury. Withal, large 
reductions were made in the expenses of the Government. 
Of course this was largely due to the lengthening distance 
of the war. Many claims growing out of the war had 
been paid off. Interest had been considerably reduced by 
the reduction of the public debt, and by lowering rates of 
interest. Besides, a spirit of economy was returning both 
to Congress and to the country. But when proper allow- 
ance is made for all these things, great credit is still due 
to the Committee on Appropriations, and especially to 
Chairman Garfield, from 1871 to 1875, for the reduction 
of the national expenditures. It should be added that all 
these reforms were made in the face of strenuous opposi- 
tion. Naturally they encountered the hostility of all 
lovers of large appropriations and all holders of claims. 
Executive officers, too, fond of having abundant funds at 
their disposal, resisted both the covering of the unex- 
pended balances into the Treasury and the rigid provisions 
of law by which, at the close of each fiscal year, such 
balances go at once into the general fund. 

"In his study of national expenditures, General Gar- 
field strove to discover the law by which they increase 
and diminish. He saw that, m time of peace, the best 
gauge, in a given state of civilization, is population. But 
it does not cost as much per capita to govern twenty mil- 
lion people as one million. Hence, while population tends 
to increase by a geometrical ratio, expenditures should 
increase only by an arithmetical ratio. The amount per 
capita should fall off. European countries, whose popu- 



456 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

lation does not expand territorially, but only increases in 
. ;y, follow this law. So statistics teach. But in a 
country like ours the territorial element plays an impor- 
tant part. Thus far our boundaries have continued to 
widen and new Mates to be organized, both in the old 
territory and in the new. lie found, therefore, that two 
main forces act in the ordinary movement of our expendi- 
ture: I he natural growth of population and the exten- 
sion <>f our territory and increase in the number of our 
States. He held further that, while the ordinary expendi- 
tures would tend to increase from year to year after the 
Nation had reached the bottom of the inclined plane reach- 
ing downward from the war, 'they ought not to increase by 
the same per cent, from year to year ; the rate of increase 
ought gradually to grow less.' He next inquired concern- 
ing the effect of wars on national expenditures, finding 
them a disturbing element of enormous power. The 
whole inquiry involved a most difficult inductive investi- 
gation." 




JAMES A. GARFIELD. 457 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

GAKFIELD ON PUBLIC EXPENDITURES. — THE CREDIT MOBIL- 
IER COMPANY. 

General Garfield occupied the position of Chair- 
man of the Committee on Appropriations — a Committee 
which recommends and supervises all the expenditures of 
the Government — during four years, or until the Demo- 
crats came into power in the House in 1875. At that 
time the annual expense of the Government was about 
three hundred million dollars. During his services on 
the Committee on Appropriations, this annual expen- 
diture was greatly reduced. It reformed the system of 
estimates and appropriations, provided for closer account- 
ability on the part of those who spend the public money, 
and gave a clear knowledge to those who voted for it, of 
what it was used for. 

On the 23d of January, 1872, General Garfield made 
a most remarkable speech on Public Expenditures, their 
Increase and Diminution. In that speech he forecasted 
the financial history of the country for years to come, 
which time has verified. By a philosophical mental 
process he arrived at the conclusion that the expenditures 
of a war cannot be brought down to a peace level until a 
subsequent period twice as long as the war itself. This 
conclusion was warranted by the history of wars of Eng- 
land and of our own wars from the beginning of our Gov- 
ernment. He showed that expenditures rise to their 



458 THE BI0GBAPH1 OB' 

greatest height at the close of war; then begin to fall 
gradually until they reach the peace level, and then be- 
gin to rise again and gradually keep pace with the 
growth and prosperity of the country-. 

General Garfield said the Civil War was substantially 
five years long, ending financially in 1866. Applying the 
rule spoken of, the peace level would he reached in 1S76. 
In a masterly analysis of tables of expenditures attending 
and resulting from the war, and the expenses of peace, he 
demonstrated that there had been a constant increase of 
the peace expenditures and a constant decrease of those of 
the war. 

" There were two processes," says a recent writer,"one of 
increase and one of diminution ; but the magnitude of the 
war iiad been so great that the decrease would be faster 
than the increase resulting from peace. The problem 
was, when will these two lines meet, and the upward in- 
cline of peace begin? It requi red great breadth of gen- 
eralization, and minute attention to details, to reach the 
result; and that he did it, and came to so correct a con- 
clusion, is evidence of the remarkable power and grasp of 
his mind.'' 

The following extracts from his speech will strikingly 
illustrate his power in analyzing: 



"Beginning with L791, the last decade of the eight- 
eenth centurj showed an annual average of *',],", yO,(i()0. 
During the first decade of the present century, the aver- 
as nearly -<>.■" ,000. Or, commencing with 1791, 

their followed twenty years oi peace, during which the 
annual average of ordinary expenditures was more than 
doubled. Then followed four years, from L812 to 1815, 
inclusive, m which the war with England swelled the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 459 

average to $25,500,000. During the five years succeeding 
that war, the average was $16,500,000; and it was not 
until 1821 that the new level of peace was reached. Dur- 
ing the live years from 1820 to 1825, inclusive, the annual 
average was 811,500,000. From 1825 to 1830 it was $13,- 
000,000. From 1830 to 1835 it was $17,000,000. From 
L835 to 1840, in which period occurred the Seminole war, 
it was s;jo, 500,000. From 1840 to 1845 it was $27,000,000. 
From 1845 to 1850, during which period occurred the 
Mexican war, it was 840,500,000. From 1850 to 1855 it 
was $47,500,000. From 1855 to June 30, 1861, it was 
$67,000,000. From June 30, 1861, to June 30, 1866, 
ft 13, 750, 000 ; and from June 30, 1866, to June 30, 1871, 
the annual average was $189,000,000. 

'•'It is interesting to inquire how far we may reason- 
ably expect to go in the descending scale before we reach 
the new level of peace. It took England twenty years 
after Waterloo before she reached such a level. Our own 
experience has been peculiar in this, that our people have 
been impatient of debt, and have always determinedly set 
about the work of reducing it. 

" Throughout" our history there may be seen a curious 
uniformity in the movement of the annual expenditures 
for the years immediately following a war. We have not 
the data to determine how long it was, after the War of 
Independence, before the expenditures ceased to decrease, 
that is, before they reached the point where their natural 
growth more than balanced the tendency to reduction of 
war expenditure ; but in the years immediately following 
all our subsequent wars, the decrease has continued for a 
period almost exactly twice the length of the war itself. 

"After the war of 1812-'15, the expenditures con- 
tinued to decline for eight years, reaching the lowest point 
in l*^. 

"After the Seminole war, which ran through three 
years— 1836, (.837, and 1838— the new level was not 
reached until 1844, six years after its close. 

" After the Mexican war, which lasted two years, it 



46U THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

took four years, until 1852, to reach the new level of 
peace. 

•• It is, perhaps, unsafe to base our calculations for the 
future On these analogies ; but the wars already referred 
to have been of Buch varied character, and their financial 
effects have been so uniform, as to make it nut unreason- 
able to expert that a similar result will follow our late 
war. [f soj the decrease of our ordinary expenditures, 
exclusive of the principal and interest of the public debt, 
will continue until L875 or 1 876. 

•• We eannot exped so rapid a reduction of the public 
debi and its burden of interest as we have witnessed for 
the last three years ; but the reduction will doubtless con- 
tinue, and the burden of interest will constantly decrease. 
I know it is not safe to attempt to forecast the future; 
but I venture to express the belief that, if peace continues, 
the year L876 will witness our ordinary expenditures re- 
duced to $125,000,000, and the interest on our public 
deb! to $95,000,000 : making- our total expenditures, ex- 
clusive of payment on the principal of the public debt, 
$230,000,000. Judging from our own experience and 
from that of other nation-, we may not hope thereafter to 
reach a town- figure. In making this estimate, I have as- 
sumed thai there will be a considerable reduction of the 
burdens of taxation, and a revenue not nearly in so great 

the expenditures as we now collect." 

[n an article published in the North American Re- 
view in the Summer of L 879, seven years after this speech, 
( 1-eneral < Sarfield said : 

•• Reviewing the subject in the light of subsequent ex- 
perience, it will he seen thai the progress of reduction of 
expenditures from the war level has been very nearly in 
accordance with these expectations of seven years ago. 

" The actual expenditures since the war. including in- 
■ on the public debt, ae shown by the official record, 

follows : 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



461 



1865, . 


. $1,297,555,224 41 


1872, . 


. $277,517,962 68 


1866, . 


520,809,416 99 


1873, . 


. 290,345,245 33 


1867, . 


357,542,675 16 


1874, . 


. 287,133,873 17 


1868, . 


377,340,284 86 


1875, . 


. 274,623,392 84 


1869, . 


322,865,277 80 


1876, . 


. 258,459,797 33 


1870, . 


309,653,560 75 


1877, . 


. 238,660,008 93 


1871, . 


292,177,188 25 


1878, . 


. 236,964,326 80 



" Omitting the iivst of these years, in which the enor- 
mous payments to the army swelled the aggregate of ex- 
penses to $1,297,000,000, and, beginning with the first 
full year after the termination of the war, it will be seen 
that the expenditures have been reduced, at first very 
rapidly, and then more slowly, from $520,000,000 in 1866 
to about $237,000,000 in 1878. 

"The estimate quoted above was that in 1876 expendi- 
tures would be reduced to $230,000,000, including $95,- 
000,000 for interest on the public debt. In 1877, one 
year later than the estimated date, the actual reduction 
had reached $238,000,000, including $97,000,000 for inter- 
est on the public debt. [He means the expenditures had 
been reduced to $238,000,000.] 

"It is evident that in 1877 we had very nearly reached 
the limit of possible reduction, for the aggregate expendi- 
tures of 1878 show a reduction below that of the pre- 
ceding year of less than $2,000,000 ; and the expendi- 
tures, actual and estimated, for the current year ending 
June 30, 1879, are $240,000,000. It thus appears that 
1878 was the turning-point from which, under the influ- 
ence of the elements of normal growth, we may expect a 
constant, though it ought to be a small, annual increase 
of expenditures." 



During the dark days of the Ku-Klux outrages in 
Southern States, General Garfield bore an important part 
in the perfecting of measures for the enforcement of the 
Fourteenth Amendment to the National Constitution. A 
very stringent bill for that purpose had been introduced, 



462 TEE BIOOBATHI OF 

embodying among other extreme measures proposed, giving 
authority to the President to suspend the privilege of the 
writ of habeas corpus in Southern States if he should 
deem it necessary. Garfield was in full accord with those 
who favored the exercise of the full powers of the laws in 
the enforcement of that Amendment, but he strenuously 
opposed the harsh and extreme features of the bill, in a 
speech of great ability, delivered on April 1, 1871. The 
genera] tenor and spirit of the speech are indicated in the 
opening sentence After repeating the words of the in- 
troducer of the bill — " it requires us to enter upon unex- 
plored territory," he said: 

"Thai territory, .Mr. Speaker, is the neutral ground 
of all political philosophy ; the neutral ground for 
which rival theories have been struggling in all ages. 
THere arc two ideas so utterly antagonistic that when, in 
anv nation, either lias gained absolute and complete pos- 
session of that neutral ground, the ruin of that nation 
has invariably followed. The one is that, despotism which 
swallows and absorbs all power in a single central govern- 
nirii! ; il ther is thai extreme doctrine of legal sover- 
eignty which makes nationality impossible, and resolves a 
general government into anarchy and chaos. It makes 
hut little difference as to the final result which of these 
idea- drives the other from the field j in either case, ruin 

follows. 

"The result exhibited by one was >rv\\ in theAmphie- 
tyonic and Achaean leagues df ancient Greece, of which 
Madison, in the twentieth number of ' TTie Federalist,' 
says : 

"'The inevitable result of all was imbecility in the 
government, discord among the provinces, foreign in- 
fluences and indignities, a precarious existence in peace, 
and peculiar calamit ies in war.' " 




THE "T^I^UJTE" gUILQIJsfG QI(fi1>E(X) Iff 

JtfOUItJIIjNG. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 466 

" This is a fitting description of nil nations who have 
carried the doctrine of local self-government so far as to 
exclude the doctrine of nationality. They were not 
nations, but mere leagues, hound together by common 
consent, ready to fall to pieces at the demand of any re- 
fractory member. The opposing idea was never better il- 
lustrated than when Louis XIV. entered the French As- 
sembly, booted and spurred, and girded with the sword 
of ancestral kings, and said to the deputies of France, 
* The State ! I am the State !' 

"Between these opposite and extreme theories of 
government, the people have been tossed from century to 
century; and it has been only when these ideas have been 
in reasonable equipoise, when this neutral ground has been 
held in joint occupancy, and usurped by neither, that 
popular liberty and national life have been possible. How 
many striking illustrations of this do we see in the history 
of France ! The despotism of Louis XIV., followed by a 
reign of terror, wheu liberty had run mad and France was 
a vast scene of blood and ruin ! We see it again in our 
day. 

" Only a few years ago the theory of personal govern- 
ment had placed in the hands of Napoleon III. absolute 
and irresponsible power. The communes of France were 
crushed, and local liberty existed no longer. Then fol- 
lowed Sedan and the rest. On the first day of last month, 
when France Avas trying to rebuild her ruined govern- 
ment, when the Prussian cannon had hardly ceased 
thundering against the Avails of Paris, a deputy of France 
rose in the National Assembly and moved, as the first step 
toward the safety of his country, that a committee of 
thirty should be chosen, to be called the Committee of 
Decentralization. But it was too late to save France from 
the fearful reaction from despotism. The news comes to 
us, under the sea, that on Saturday last the cry Avas ring- 
ing through France, ' Death to the priests, and death to 
the rich !' and the swords of the citizens of that new Re- 
public are now wet Avith each other's blood." 



466 • THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

It was in this (the Forty-second) Congress, in the Winter 
of lbT^'TS, that the Credit Mobilier development excited 
the whole country with alarm, for it seemed to point to 
the existence of corruption in public life not hitherto 
suspected. The following is a brief history of that affair : 

In September, 1864, the Union Pacific Railway made 
a contract with II. W. Hoxie, for the building by the latter, 
of one hundred miles of that railway from Omaha, west. 
Mr. Hoxie assigned this contract to a company, according 
to a mutual understanding from the first. This company 
was know i) as the Credit Mobilier of America. They 
had bought up an old charter that had been granted by 
the Pennsylvania Legislature to another company, but 
which had not been used by them. 

About 1866, Oakes Ames, then a member of Con- 
gress from the State of Massachusetts, and his brother 
Oliver Ames (both men of large capital and known in- 
tegrity), became interested in the Union Pacific Com- 
pany, and also in the Credit Mobilier Company, as 
the agent for the contractor of the road. Relying upon 
these gentlemen, many men of capital were, chiefly 
through the personal efforts of Oakes Ames, induced to 

take Btock in the tw mpaniesj Among them were 

Samuel Hooper and John B. Alley, members of the 
House of Representatives from Massachusetts, and Mr. 
Grimes, then a Senator from the State of Iowa. 

Bui great difficulty was experienced in procuring the 
required amount of capital. In the Spring of 1S67 the 
Oredil Mobilier Company, whose capital stock was two 
million five hundred thousand dollars, voted to add fifty 
per cent, to this Btock : and to cause it to be readily taken, 
each subscriber to it was entitled to receive as a uonus an 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 467 

equal amount of first mortgage bonds of the Union 
Pacific Company. The old stockholders were entitled to 
take this increase ; yet the stock of the company was not 
considered of par value until Oakes Ames completed a 
contract for building a large section of the road. 

This contract, executed in August, 1867, contained 
an agreement by which Mr. Ames was to build six hun- 
dred and seventy -seven miles of the Union Pacific road, 
at various prices per mile, amounting, in the aggregate, 
to $47,000,000. Before the contract was executed, it 
was understood that * Ames was to transfer it to seven 
trustees, who were to execute it, and the profits of the 
contract were to be divided among the stockholders in 
the Credit Mobilier Company, who should comply with 
certain conditions. They all did so. The great body of 
the stockholders in the Union Pacific ratified the con- 
tract, but not all of them. 

Because of the enormous price to be paid for the 
building of this section of the road, the stockholders anti- 
cipated very large profits from the contract, and early in 
1868, the stock of the Credit Mobilier Company was 
considered by its holders worth three or four times its 
par value. The stockholders of this company being also 
stockholders of the Union Pacific Company, there was a 
mutual pecuniary interest. 

The Union Pacific railway was largely dependent upon 
the National (fovernment for aid that might insure its 
success. Its managers were shrewd business men, and 
they so directed affairs that all the burdens and risks 
of the enterprise were laid upon the General Govern- 
ment, while they secured to themselves all the profits to 
be derived from the undertaking. Congress endowed the 



468 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Railway Company with twenty alternate sections of land 
per mile, ami loaned it $16,000 a mile for about two 
hundred miles; thence $32,000 a mile through the Alkali 
Desert, and $48,000 a mile thence in the E&cky Moun- 
tains. The company issued stock to the amount of 
$10,000,000, which was received by the stockholders on 
their payment of five per cent, of its face. 

When the Credit Mobilier was formed and Ames's 
contract was perfected, all the assets of the Union Pacific 
Company wen- turned over to them in consideration of 
full paid shares of the new company's stock and its agree- 
ment to luiild the road. The Government, meanwhile, had 
allowed its claim for its loan of bonds to become a second 
mortgage, and permitted the Union Pacific Road to issue 
first mortgage bonds, which took precedence as a lien upon 
the road. The Government lien became worthless, as the 
new mortgage amounted to all the value of the road. The 
proceeds of this transaction swelled the profits of the 
Credit Mobilier. which had nothing to pay out excepting 
for the cost of construction. Some of the dividends of 
the latter company were paid in Union Pacific Company 
bonds. By this shrewd management the bonded debts of 
the railroad exceeded its cost by fully $40,000,000. 

Oakes Ames was one of the principal managers of 
this Bcheme. The chief object of the Credit Mobilier 
emed to be to drain money from the Union Pacific, and 
consequently from the Government. Ames naturally 
foresa v that, sooner or later, there musl be inquiries, and 
that legislation by Congress to protect the interest.- of the 
Government would be called for. Such legislation would 
be unfavorable to the Credit Mobilier, and it was to their 



JAMh's A. UAHFIELD. 1(39 

interest, as it was undoubtedly their aim, to prevent such 
legislation. 

It seems to have been accordingly determined to in- 
terest enough members of Congress to prevent the adop- 
tion of measures for the protection of the National 
Treasury. Oakes Ames was then in Congress, and he un- 
dertook to carry out the last-named plan. It was very 
simple. It was simply to bribe a certain number of the 
members of Congress. To do this, a certain portion of 
the Credit Mobilier stock was placed in the hands of 
Ames as trustee, " to be used by him as he thought best 
for the interest of the company." With this trust he was 
in Washington at the opening of Congress in December, 

1867. 

Mr. Ames immediately began operations. He offered 
a considerable number of members of Congress, both 
Senators and Representatives, Credit Mobilier stock at 
par, with interest thereon from the first day of the pre- 
vious July. He did not urge it upon them ; the only 
inducement he held out was the assurance that it would 
be good stock and that he would guarantee at least ten 
per cent, interest on the investment. When some of 
them asked Mr. Ames whether becoming stock-holders 
would embarrass them as members of Congress in their 
legislation concerning the Union Pacific Railway, he 
assured them that the company had received from Con- 
gress all the grants and legislation they wanted, and they 
should ask for nothing more. 

A considerable number of members of Congress en- 
tered into contracts for the stock, some paying the money 
down, others agreeing with Mr. Ames for him to "carry" 
it until they should have the money, or it should be met 



470 THE B100RAPH7 OF 

by dividends. The dividends with the accrued interest 
were more than enough to pay for the stock, and so the 
value of the investment was perfectly apparent. " One 
hand washed the other." The motive of Mr. Ames in 
thus •" placing" the stuck, was stated by an investigating 
committee afterwards, as follows: 

"In relation to the purposes and motives of Mr. 
Aim- in contracting to let members of Congress have 
Credit Mobilier stuck at par, whieh he and all other 
owners of it considered worth at least double that sum. 
the committee, upon the evidence taken by them, and 
submitted to the House, cannot entertain a doubt. When 
he said he did not suppose the Union Pacific Company 
would ask or need further legislation, he stated what he 
believed to be true, but feared the interests of the road 
mighl suffer by adverse legislation ; and what he desired 
to accomplish was to enlist strength and friends in Con- 
gress who would resisl anv encroachments upon or inter- 
ference with the rights and privileges already secured, and 
to that end wished to create in them an interest identical 
with his own. 

" This purpose is clearly avowed in Mr. Ames's letters 
to fctcComb, copied in the evidence, where he says he in- 
tends to plaee the stock 'where it will do the most good 
to us;' and again, ' We want mure friends in this Con- 
.' In his letter to McComb, and- also in his state- 
ment prepared by counsel, he gives the philosophy of his 
action, to wit : Thai he has round there is no difficulty in 
getting men to look after their own property, 

•• The commit he are also satisfied that Mr. Ames enter* 
tained a fear that when the true relations between t he Credit. 
M tbilier Company and the Onion Pacific became generally 
known, and the mean- by which the greai profits expected 
to be made wm-e t'ulh understood, there was danger that 
Congressional investigation and action would be invoked. 
The members of Congress with whom he dealt were gen- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 471 

enerally tlioso who had been friendly and favorable to a 
Pacific railroad, and Mr. Ames did not fear or expect to 
find them favorable to movements hostile to it, but he 
desired to stimulate their activity and watchfulness in 
opposition to any unfavorable action, by giving them a 
personal interest in the success of the enterprise, especially 
so far as it affected the interest of the Credit Mobilier 
Company." 

It was- estimated that the profits of the Credit 
Mobilier were about $30,000,000. They had obtained, as 
clear profits, the proceeds of the land-grants, donations 
from communities near the road, and the entire subsidy 
of Government bonds. The fact is, the managers of the 
two companies made a bargain with themselves to build 
the road for a sum equal to about double its cost, and the 
enormous profit derived came out of the pockets of the 
tax-payers of the United States. The following para- 
graph from the Committee's Report reveals the sources 
of immense profits : 

"On June 17, 1868, the stockholders of the Credit 
Mobilier received 60 per cent, in cash, and 40 per cent, in 
stock of the Union Pacific Railroad ; on the 2d of July, 
1868, 80 per cent, first mortgage bonds of the Union 
Pacific Railroad, and 100 per cent, stock ; July 3, 1868, 
75 per cent, stock, and 75 per cent, first mortgage bonds ; 
September 3, 1868, 100 per cent, stock and 75 per cent, 
first mortgage bonds ; December 19, 1868, 200 per cent, 
stock ; while, before this contract was made, the stock- 
holders had received, on the 26th of April, 1866, a divi- 
dend of 100 per cent, in stock of the Union Pacific Rail- 
road ; on the first of April, 1867, fifty per cent, of first 
mortgage bonds were distributed ; on the- first of July, 
1867, one hundred per cent, in stock again." 



172 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Oak..- Anns and Henry S. MEcComb, of Delaware 
(referred to in the Report of the Committee), " fell out," 
and in the summer of L872, in the midst of the Presi- 
dential campaign, the quarrel became so hot that it burst 
into a flame, when McComb made public the facts of the 
ease, and published a list of the Congressmen with whom 
Ajnessaid he had "placed" the stock; also naming the 
number <>!' sharep sold to each. These were: 

Schuyler Colfax, Vice-President of the United States : 
Henry Wilson, Senator from Massachusetts ; James W. 
Patterson, Senator from New Hampshire; John A. 
Logan, Senator from Illinois; James G. Blaine, Member 
of Congress from Maine, and Speaker of the House of 
Representatives; W. D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania; James 
A. Garfield, of Ohio ; James Brooks, of New York; John 
A. Bingham, of Ohio ; Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts ; 
Glenni W. Schofield, of Pennsylvania, and one or two 
others, who were not at the time of the exposure mem- 
bers of Congress. 

The member.- implicated in Ames's statement indig- 
nantly denied the charge of having owned or purchased 

Credit Mobilier Stock, saying it would have been a high 
crime against morality and decency to be connected, in 
any way, with that company. The charges against these 
men produced intense excitement throughoul the country. 
The denials were generally accepted, as the persons 

making them had borne a high character for honor, 

veracity and integrity ; yet partisan orators and news 
papers bo continually repeated the charges and made the 

persons implicated BO odious that their denials were more 

earnestly repeated. 

Mr. Blaine was al that time Speakerof the Mouse. 



JAMES .!. <;.\i:rih:i.i>. 473 

When Congress assembled in December, 1872, lie asked 
for, and obtained, the appointment of a Committee to 
inquire into the charges of Ames and McComb, and to 
report the result of their investigations. The Committee 
was appointed, with Mr. Poland, of Vermont, as Chair- 
man. The investigations were conducted openly. The 
Committee reported on February 13, 1873. We will not 
follow its course further, excepting so far as the investi- 
gation concerns General Garfield, who was charged with 
participating in the corrupt profits of the Credit Mobilier. 
The charges against all of them were disproved. General 
Garfield appeared before the Investigating Committee on 
January 14, 1873, and made the following statement, 
under oath : 

" The first I ever heard of the Credit Mobilier was 
sometime in 1866 or 1867 — I cannot fix the date — when 
George Francis Train called on me and said he was organ- 
izing a company to be known as the Credit Mobilier of 
America, to be founded on the model of the Credit Mo- 
bilier of France ; that the object of the company was to 
purchase lands and build houses along the line of the 
Pacific Eailroad at points where cities and villages were 
likely to spring up ; that he had no doubt that money 
thus invested would double or treble itself in each year ; 
that subscriptions were limited to $1,000 each, and he 
wished me to subscribe. 

"Mr. Train showed me a long list of subscribers, 
among them Mr. Oakes Ames, to whom he referred me 
for further information concerning the enterprise. I an- 
swered that I had not the money to spare, and if I had I 
would not subscribe without knowing more about the 
proposed organization. Mr. Train left me, saving he 
would hold a place open for me, and hoped I would con- 
clude to subscribe. The same day I asked Mr. Ames 



THE BlOQllAl'll) OF 

what he thought of the enterprise. He expressed the 
opinion that the investmeni would be safe and profitable. 

'■ I heard nothing further on the subject for a year or 
. and it was almost forgotten, when sometime, I 
should say, during the long session of 1868, Mr. Ames 
spoke of it again, said the company had organized, was 
doing well, and, he thought, would soon pay large divi- 
dends. He said that some of the stock was left, or was 
to be left, in his hands to sell, and I could take the 
amount which .Mr. Train had offered me, by paying the 
$1,000 and accrued interest. He said if I was not ahh 
to pay for it he would hold it for me until I could pay 
or until some of the dividends were payable. I told him 1 
Would consider the matter, but would not agree to take 
any -lock until I knew, from an examination of the char- 
ter and the conditions of the subscription, the extent to 
which I would become pecuniarily liable. He said he 
was not sure, but thought a stockholder would only be 
liable for the par value of his stock ; that he had not the 
stock and papers with him, but would have them after 
a while. From the case as presented I should probably 
have taken the stock if I had been satisfied in regard to 
the extent, of pecuniary liability. 

•• Thus the matter rested, I think, until the following 
year. During that interval I understood that there were, 
dividends due amounting to nearly three times the par 
\alue of tie' stock. Bui in the meantime I had heard that 
the company was involved in some controversy with the 
Pacific Railroad and that Mr. Ames's right to sell the 
-to, I, was denied. When I next ,-aw Mi-. Ames 1 told him 
1 had concluded not to take the stock. There the matter 
ended, 30 Ear as I was concerned, and I had no further 
knowledge of the company's operations until the subject 
began to be discu sed in the newspapers last fall (1872). 
Nothing was ever said to me by Mr. Train or Mr. Ames 

tu in, lira!,' ,n- imply that the Cn'dit Mobilier was or could 

he in any way connected with the legislation of Congress 
I'm- Hi,- Pacific Railroad or any other purpose. Mr. Ames 






JAMES A. GARFXBLD. 475 

never gave nor offered bo give me any -lock or other rain- 
able thing as a gift. I once asked and obtained from him, 
and afterwards repaid to him, a loan of $300 ; that 
amount is the only valuable thing I ever received from or 
delivered to him. 1 never owned, received, or agreed to 
receive any stock of the Credit Mobilier or of the Union 
Pacific Railroad, nor any dividends or profits arising from 
either of them." 

General Garfield was not only fully acquitted of all 
connection with the Credit Mobilier scheme by the Con- 
gressional committee, but by Judge Black, his political 
opponent, in the following letter addressed to the Speaker 
of the House of Representatives : 

•• Philadelphia, February 15, 1873. 

" My Deak Sir: — From the beginning of the investi- 
gation concerning Mr. Ames's use of the Credit Mobilier, 
I believe that General Garfield was free from all guilty 
connection with that business. This opinion was founded 
not merely on my confidence in his integrity, but on some 
special knowledge of his case. I may have told you all 
about it in conversation, but I desire now to repeat it by 
way of reminder. 

"I assert unhesitatingly that, whatever General Gar- 
field may have done or forborne to do, he acted in pro- 
found ignorance of the nature and character of the thing 
which Mr. Ames was proposing to sell. He had not the 
slightest suspicion that he was to be taken into a ring 
organized for the purpose of defrauding the public ; nor 
did he know that the stock was in any manner connected 
with anything which came, or could come, with the legis- 
lative jurisdiction of Congress. The case against him 
lacks the scienter which alone constitutes guilt. 

" In the winter of 1869-'70, I told General Garfield of 
the fact that his name was on Ames's list; that Ames 
charged him with being one of his distributees; explained 



■i:<; TEE BIOQRAPHt OF 

to him tlir character, origin, and objects of the Credit 
Mobilier; pointed out the connection it had with Congres- 
sional legislation, and showed him how impossible it was 
for a member of Congress to hold stock in it without 
bringing his private interests in conflict with his public 
duty. That all this was to him a perfectly new revelation 
I am as sure as I can he of such a fact, or of any fact 
which is capable of being proved only by moral circum- 
stances, lie told me, then, the whole story of Train's 
offer to him and Ames's subsequent solicitation, and his 
own action in the premises, much as he details it to the 
committee. I do not undertake to reproduce the conver- 
sation, but the effect of it all was to convince me 
thoroughly that when he listened to Ames he was per- 
fectly unconscious of anything evil. I watched carefully 
every word that fell from him on this point, and did not 
regard his narrative of the transaction in other respects 
with much interest, because in my view everything else 
was insignificant. I did not care whether lie had made a 
bargain technically binding or not; his integrity depended 
upon the question whether he acted with his eyes open. 
If be had known the true character of the proposition 
made to him lie would not have endured it, much less em- 

<\ it. 
•• Now, couple this with Mr. Ames's admission that he 

qo explanation whatever of the matter to General 
Garfield; then relied that not a particle of proof exists 
to diow that lie learned anything about it previous to his 
conversation with me, and 1 think you will say that it 
is altog( ther unjust to put bini on (be list of those who, 
knowinglj and wilfully, joined the fraudulent association 
in quest ion. 

••.I. s. Black. 

•' Hon. .'. I •. Iw LINE, 

*• Speaker of the House of Representatives." 

General Garfield, pursuant to a notice which he gave 
in the Bouse on March 3, i s T;'-. published a review of the 



JAME8 A. GARFIELD. 479 

whole matter in a pamphlet in May. He issued twe 

pamphlets, one entitled "Keviewof the Transactions of 
the Credit Mobilier Company," and the other " Increase 
of Salaries/' These were sent out from Washington. 
The latter was in defense or explanation of his action in 
Congress on the increase of the salaries of members of 
rcss and others. lie had always opposed such a 
measure when proposed, but when it was forced upon 
one of the great appropriation hills by a decided vote, 
when the Conference Committee insisted that it should 
remain, when further resistance was either nugatory or 
would involve an extraordinary session of Congress, he 
concluded that it was his duty for the good of his country 
to acquiesce and vote for the bill, with this (to him) ob- 
noxious measure. 

General Garfield's political enemies took advantage of 
this vote and he was held responsible for the odious " Sal- 
ary Grab," as it was called. This, with reiterated charges 
of his corrupt connection with the Credit Mobilier 
scheme, caused a wave of opposition to him (started in the 
East) to roll over the Western Eeserve with a fury that 
threatened to overwhelm him in political ruin. But he 
never lost faith in the justice and intelligence of the peo- 
ple of his district. After he had issued his pamphlets, he 
went home to meet his constituents face to face. 

Of the effect of the false charges on the character and 
political standing of General Garfield, and the final result, 
President Hinsdale, in a public address in 1880, after 
speaking of the intelligence and virtue of the people of 
the Western Reserve, said : 

"The Nineteenth Ohio Congressional District is the 
eastern part of the Reserve. Probably it has retained the 
18 



480 THE BIOQRAPnY OF 

New England blood and traditions in a higher degree of 
purity than any other part. It early became deeply in- 
terested in the anti-slavery movement, and this greatly 

quickened the interest of the people in public affaire. 

''Nowhere did the Mobilier and Salary matters make 
a deeper impression than on this most sensitive and jeal- 
ous constituency. General Garfield had now represented 
it in live successive Congresses ; and, although not then 
BO well known as he is to-day, his name had crossed the 
continent to the AVest and the ccean to the East. The 
district felt very proud of him. He was nominated the 
first time by a small majority. The second time without 
opposition. His third and fourth nominations were vig- 
orously contested, but he triumphed so easily and so de- 
cisively that opposition fled the field and left him in se- 
cure possession. No representative held his constituency 
with a firmer hand. His tenure promised to be as long 
as that of Whittlesey, or even Giddings. 

" But now all was changed. A Republican convention 
that met in Warren for some local purpose demanded his 
resignation. Most men denounced, all regretted, none 
defended what had been done. All that the staunchest 
friends of General Garfield presumed to do was to say, 
' Wait until you hear the ease ; hear what Garfield has to 
say before you determine that he is a dishonest man.' 

"Indulge me again in a personal word. Returning 
home from Washington after the adjournment, I found 
myself in the midst of the tempest. Cleveland editors 
hesitated to publish any statement of the Salary matter 
that varied from the current version. One of them said 
to me, 'This vote has taken us in the pit of the stomach.' 
Perhaps the best illustration that I can give of the inten- 
sity of feeling is this : Knowing as 1 did the grounds of 
General Garfield's action, and the spirit in which he had 

acted, I telt it my ilni\ to say in private conversation, in 
the newspapers, ami even in the Hiram pulpit: 'General 
Garfield is not a thief. He has not robbed Hie Treasury. 

Whether he is right or wrong, I do not argue ; but 



JAMES A. GARFTET.T). 481 

whether right or wrong, he lias acted honestly and with 
an eye single to the public good.' And some of my neigh- 
bors said: 'Mr. Hinsdale has a private right to think 
General Garfield honest if he can ; but let him keep his 
opinion to himself ; he has no right to injure the college 
of which he is president, as he will do by bearing public 
testimony.* Garfield wrote me from Washington, sadly 
but resolutely : ' The district is lost, and as soon as 1 can 
close up my affairs here, I am coming home to capture it.' 

" And he did capture it. He issued his pamphlets, 
'Keview of the Transactions of the Credit Mobilier Com- 
pany' and 'Increase of Salaries,' from Washington, and 
then came on to Hiram. These pamphlets, with a per- 
sonal speech in Warren somewhat later, constituted his 
direct defence. When the next campaign opened he went 
as usual upon the stump. He rarely referred to the 
charges against him, and never did unless compelled to do 
so. He grappled with the questions of the day. He went 
from county to county, and almost from village to village. 
His knowledge was so great, his argumentation so logical, 
his spirit so earnest, and his bearing, both public and 
private, so manly, that men began to ask, ' Can it be true 
that Mr. Garfield is such a man as they tell us ?' Preju- 
dice yielded slowly though surely. 

" The next campaign it was the same thing over. 
Garfield had now to be returned himself or leave public 
life. After a struggle that shook the district, he was re- 
nominated by a three-fourths vote of the convention. 
Two years later the resistance was less. By this time he 
had won back the masses. They had become convinced 
almost universally of his integrity. Hardly a man can be 
found in the district who questioned it. Only those who 
had been very violent in opposition now stood out. These 
had to be won back one by one. Two years later there 
was no opposition whatever ; the district had been re- 
captured. 

"In 1878 he was re-elected by his old-time majority. 
Opposition was now no more. Men who had been most 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

denunciatory now were warmest in his praise ; and it was 
actually left to the friends who had stood by him through 
all the Btorm bo snpply such criticism as every public man 
needs bo keep him in proper tone. When the Senatorship 
question came np last Fall, the Republicans of the Nine- 
teenth District had but one objection to his election — un- 
willingness to lose him as their Representative. And now- 
thai he is on the way to the chair at Washington, 1 will 
say that ii" equal population between the two oceans will 
Him a greater majority bhan this old constituency. 
"Nor should 1 fail to mark how the victory was won, 
how the district was recaptured. It was not accomplished 
by management ; dames A. Garfield is no 'manager.' It 
was not by flattering the people and appealing to popular 
passions. General Garfield is no demagogue. It was by the 
earnest, straightforward exposition of solid political doc- 
trine : it was by the high bearing of the man ; in a word, 
it was by the impact of his mental and moral power upon 
intelligent and honest minds." 



JAMES A. UA11FIELD. 483 



CHAPTER XIX. 

JEFFERSON DAVIS AND AMNESTY. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
ARRAIGNED. 

In 1874, a Democratic " tidal wave " arose. Indica- 
tions of it appeared in 1872, when a coalition of dissatis- 
fied Republicans (calling themselves Liberal Republicans) 
and the Democrats, in their respective national conven- 
tions at Cincinnati and Baltimore, nominated Horace 
Greeley for President of the United States. The wave 
was checked temporarily ; but in the elections in 1874, 
it rose so high that it overwhelmed Republican majorities 
in Congressional districts, and gave to the Democrats a 
controlling power in the House of Representatives. This 
privilege they had not enjoyed since 1861. 

There was a determined effort, in the Fall of 1874, to 
defeat General Garfield, who was re-nominated for 
Congress. Nearly three thousand five hundred " Liberal 
Republicans" voted against him and in favor of their 
own candidate; but he had a clear majority over the 
Democratic and Liberal Republican candidates of nearly 
three thousand. 

On the assembling of the Forty-fourth Congress 
(1875-'77), in December, 1875, the Democrats, of course, 
elected a Speaker, and all the committees were changed, 
so as to give their control to their partisans. General 
Garfield was assigned to the Committee of Ways and 
Means, but placed near the bottom of the list of mem- 



484 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

bers. He was the second Republican member on that 
committee. He had no disposition to shirk work for his 
country, but he could no longer do so us efficiently as 
before. He had held the laboring oar on committees; 
now such responsibility was removed, and he felt a free- 
dom which he had not enjoyed for years. 

Mr. Garfield labored more as a politician than he had 
done before. He had confined himself to living questions, 
and avoided, as much as possible, the discussion of past 
issues, lie had said, in a speech on the Currency, in 1868 : 

" I am aware that financial subjects are dull and un- 
inviting in comparison with those heroic themes which 
have absorbed the attention of Congress for the last five 
years. To turn from the consideration of armies and 
navies, victories and defeats, to the array of figures which 
exhibits the debt, expenditure, taxation, and industry of 
the nation, requires no little courage and self-denial ; but 
to those questions we must come, and to their solution 
Congress, political parties, and all thoughtful citizens 
must give their best efforts for many years to come." 

In accordance with these Ideas, General Garfieldhad 

worked : but now. when the North was assailed, as it 
frequently was, with insulting and most ungenerous 
words, he re-armed himself, and did battle manfully and 
valiantly for the Union. 

Earlyin the Firsl Session of the Forty-fourth Con- 
, there arose a debate on amnesty, and the question 
whether the arch-COnspirator against the life of the 
Republic, Jefferson Davis, should be restored to the 
rights of citizenship, came up. Mr. Blaine opposed Lt,when 
Benjamin 11. Bill, of < teorgia, assailed him and the whole 
North with mosl offensive language. Mr. Blaine had 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 485 

charged Davis with complicity in the atrocities of the 
prison pens at Andersonville and elsewhere, when Hill, 
in his reply, denied that any Union soldiers had heen 
starved and murdered in Southern prisons, and asserted 
that Confederate soldiers had been cruelly treated in 
Northern prisons. 

To these assertions of Hill, which overwhelming testi- 
mony contradicts, General Garfield replied in a speech of 
great power on January 12, 1876. He deprecated the 
course that the debate had taken. Referring to the 
speakers on the Democratic side he said : " Any one 
who reads these speeches would not suspect they were de- 
bating a simple proposition to relieve some citizens of 
political and legal disabilities incurred during war. For 
example, had I been a casual reader and not a listener, I 
should say that the chief proposition yesterday was an ar- 
raignment of the administration of this Government 
during the last fifteen years." 

Concerning the great body of the Southern people, 
General Garfield spoke with a conciliatory spirit, but 
insisted that they were wrong and the Nation was right. 
He was perfectly willing to grant amnesty to the seven 
hundred and fifty for whom it was asked, save one, Jeffer- 
son Davis. He said : 

" I do not object to Jefferson Davis because he was a 
conspicuous leader. Whatever we may believe theologi- 
cally, I do not believe in the doctrine of vicarious atone- 
ment in politics. Jefferson Davis was no more guilty for 
taking up arms than any other man who went into the 
rebellion with equal intelligence. ■ But this is the ques- 
tion : Iu the high court of war did he practice according 
to its well-known laws — the laws of nations ? Did he, 
in appealing to war, obey the laws of war ; or did I 



48fl THE BIOGBAPET OF 

violate those Laws, that justice to those who suffered at 
his hands demands that he be not permitted to come back 
t<> his old privileges in the Union? That is the whole 
question; and it is as plain and fair a question for delibera- 
tion as was ever debated in this House." 

Then General Garfield asked, "Were these atrocities 
that have been charged upon the Confederate authorities 
practised in Southern prisons? x\nd if so, was the Con- 
federate President responsible?" In answer to both these 
questions he brought an array of terrible facts in the 
affirmative. He supported the charge of Davis's com- 
plicity in the atrocities at Anderson ville with a mass of 
facts, much of it drawn from Confederate sources, that 
could leave no doubt upon the mind of any candid man. 
He as plainly disproved of the charges of cruelty on the 
part of the Northern custodians of Confederate prisoners. 
In conclusion he said: 

" And now, Mr. Speaker, I close as I began. Toward 
those men who gallantly fought us on the field I cherish 
the kindest feeling. 1 feel a sincere reverence for the 
soldierly qualities they displayed on many a well-fought 
battle-field. I hope the day will come when their swords 
and ours will be crossed over many a doorway of our 
children, who will remember the glory of their ancestors 
with pride. "The high qualities displayed in that conflict 
now belong to the whole Nation. Let them be consecrated 
to the Union, and its future peace and glory. I shall hail 
t hat consecrat ion a- a pledge and symbol of our perpetuity. 

••Hui there was a class of men referred to in the 

h of the gentleman yesterday for whom I have never 

gained the Christian grace necessary to say the same 

thing. The gentleman said that, amid the thunder of 

battle, through its dim smoke, and above its roar, they 

heard a voice from thj yi n c' 'Brothers, come I I 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 487 

do not know whether lie meant the same tiling, but I 
heard that voice behind us. I heard that voice and I re- 
collect that I sent one of those who uttered it through 
our lines — a voice owned by Yallandigham. General Scott 
said, in the early days of the war, ' When this war is 
over, it will require all the physical and moral power of 
the Government to restrain the rage and fury of the non- 
combatants.' It was that non-combatant voice behind us 
that cried 'Halloo !' to the other side ; that always gave 
cheer and encouragement to the enemy in our hour of 
darkness. I have never forgotten and have not yet for- 
given those Democrats of the North whose hearts were 
not warmed by the grand inspirations of the Union, but 
who stood back, finding fault, always crying disaster, re- 
joicing at our defeat, never glorying in our victory. If 
these are the voices the gentleman heard, I am sorry he is 
now united with those who uttered them. 

" But to those most noble men, Democrats and Ee- 
publicans, who together fought for the Union, I commend 
all the lessons of charity that the wisest and most benefi- 
cent men have taught. 

"I join you all in every aspiration that you may ex- 
press to stay in this Union, to heal its wounds, to increase 
its glory, and to forget the evils and bitterness of the 
past : but do not, for the sake of the three hundred 
thousand heroic men who, maimed and bruised, drag out 
their weary lives, many of them carrying in their hearts 
horrible memories of what they suffered in the prison-pen 
— do not ask us to vote to put back into power that man 
who was the cause of their suffering — that man still un- 
aneled, unshriven, unforgiven, undefended." 

At near the close of the long session of the Forty- 
fourth Congress (1 876), L. Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi, made 
a carefully-prepared speech on politics in general. He de- 
plored the evils of party ; expressed a belief that a ma-, 
jority of the American people were tired of party bicker- 



Tin: BIOGBAPUT of 

that th - " ' "•vernment of 

oorraptioii ' t the national administration was 

nipt; the Civil S a a wretched 

and that the two hundred tho fice-holders and ex- 

pectant office-holders, prevented th le making re- 

forms. 

He averred that the Republican party were incapable 
of making reforms and inferred that to effect that object 
which was dear to every true American heart, the 1 1 
should again be brought into full power in the National 
Councils. He -aid. in substance, - You have no reason 
to distrust the Sonth, for W ten in its in- 

dust: hiletheE rich and powerful, 

and that the Southern people united with the Democratic 
party of the North, because they could find sympathy and 
protection nowhere else." 

Mr. Lamar spoke of the peace and security of the 
colored race in the South, and of their kind and just treat- 
ment by their late masters. H -ended to 
influence the pending .. when Mr. Tilden v. 
Den candidate for - made 
; u the - - ■ that no adequate reply could be 
ma d< : -.it was withheld from the I 

/,' /. In tl gn he failed. Of this 

[gnment of the Republican 
Grari I iken full notes. On August 

4th I ;il speech 

delivered. It is entitli • pamphlet form, 

"Can I D Safely Trusted with the 

• ii- f" A few extracts will 
give illustrations of its scope and power. 



JAMES .1. OARFIELD. 489 

After giving, as the Bcope of Lamar's Bpeech — the 

Republican parry i.~ oppressing the Sonth; negro suffrage 
is a grievous evil ; there are serious corruptions in public 
affairs in the National legislation and administration : the 
Civil Service especially needs great and radical reform; 
and therefore the Democratic party ought to be in control 
of the Government at this time — he proceeded to an 
examination of the claims of the Democratic and Repub- 
lican parties to the confidence of the American people. 
He said : 

•■ I share all that gentleman's aspirations for peace, 
for good government at the South ; and I believe I can 
safely assure him that the great majority of the nation 
shares the same aspirations. But he will allow me 
that he has not fully stated the elements of the great 
problem to be solved by the statesmanship of to-dav. The 
actual field is much broader than the view he has taken. 
And before we can agree that the remedy he prop<: ic 
an adequate one. we must take in the whole field, com- 
prehend all the conditions of the problem, and then see 
if his remedy is sufficient. The change he proposes is 
not like the ordinary change of a ministry in England, 
when the government is defeated on a tax-bill or some 
routine measure of legislation. He proposes to turn over 
the custody and management of the Government to a 
party which has persistently and with the greatest bitter- 
ness resisted all the great changes of the last fifteen years ; 
changes which were the necessary results of a vast revolu- 
tion — a revolution in national policy, in social and polit- 
ical ideas — a revolution whose causes were not the work 
of a day nor a year, but of generations and centuries. 
The scope and character of that mighty revolution must 
form the basis of our judgment when we inquire whether 
such a change as he proposes is safe and wise.' 5 



490 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

After inquiring whether the gentleman was correct hi 
hie assertion that the conquered party accepted the results 
of the war, he said : 

" Even if they do, I remind the gentlemen that accept 
Le qoI a very strong word. I go further. I ask him if 
the Democratic party have adopted the results of the war? 
1< it not asking too much of human nature to expect such 
unparalleled changes to he not only accepted, but, in so 
Bhort a time, adopted by men of strong and independent 
opinions ? 

" The antagonisms which gave rise to the war and grew 
out of it were not born in a day, nor can they vanish in a 
night. 

"It will not do, Mr. Chairman, to speak of the gigan- 
tic revolution through which we have lately passed as a 
thing to be adjusted and settled by a change of adminis- 
tration. It was cyclical, epochal, century-wide, ami to 
be studied in its broad and grand perspective— a revolu- 
tion of even wider scope, so far as time is concerned, than 
the Revolution of 1776. We have been dealing with ele- 
ments and forces which have been at work on this conti- 
nent more than two hundred and fifty years. 1 trust I 
.shall be excused if I take a few moments to trace some 
of the leading phases of the great struggle." 

General Garfield then pointed to the introduction of 

two hostile ideas on our continent, as follows : 

" In the year 1620 there were planted upon this conti- 
nent two ideas irreconcilably h 08 tile to each other. Ideas 
are the great warriors of the world ; and a war thai has 
no ideas behind it is simply brnlality. The two ideas 
were landed, one at Plymouth Rock from the J. 
and the other from a Dutch brig al Jamestown, Virginia. 
One was the old doctrine of Luther, that private judg- 



* r7: ■ :1 A ^iOPK' IHM i 




& 1 



tq 






^ 



I 



JAMfiS A. GARFIELD. 408 

ment, in politics as "well as religion, is the right and duty 
of every man ; and the other that capital should own labor, 
that the negro had no rights of manhood, and the white man 
might justly buy, own, and sell him and his offspring for- 
ever. Thus freedom and equality on the one hand, and 
on the other the slavery of one race and the domination 
of another, were the two germs planted on this continent. 
In our vast expanse of wilderness, for a long time, there 
was room for both ; and their advocates began the race 
across the continent, each developing the social and polit- 
ical institutions of their choice. Both had vast interests 
in common ; and for a long time neither was conscious of 
the fatal antagonisms that were developing." 

General G-arfield said that for nearly two centuries 
there was not much conflict between these ideas, until 
Roundheads and Cavaliers came near enough to measure 
ideas, wdien the great struggle between Freedom and 
Slavery began, growing fiercer and fiercer every year. 
Of the bitterness and determination of the friends of 
the slave system, he read the following extract from a 
speech by Mr. Singleton, of Mississippi, in 1859, then, as 
in 1876, a member of the House : 

" It matters not what evils come upon us ; it matters 
not how deep we may have to wade through blood ; we 
are bound to keep our slaves in their present position 
. . . . I tell you here to-day that the institution 
of slavery must be sustained. The South has made up its 
mind to keep the black race in bondage. If we are not 
permitted to do this inside of the Union, I tell you that it 
will be done outside of it. Yes, sir. and we will expand 
this institution ; we do not intend to be confined within 
our present limits ; and there are not men enough in all 
your borders to coerce three million armed men in the 
South, and prevent their going into the surrounding Ter- 
ritories . . . . I am one of those who have said, and 



494 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

here repeat it, if the Black Republican party elect a Presi- 
dent, 1 am for dissolving the Union." 

mil Garfield then quoted from a speech of Mr. 
Lamar at the Bame time ( L859), as follows : 

"I was upon the floor of the Senate when your great 
leader, William II. Seward, announced that startling pro- 
gramme of anti-slavery sentiment ami action. . . . 
Ami, sir, in his exultation lie exclaimed-- fur I heard him 
myself— thai he hoped to see the day when there would 
nut be the footprint of a single slave upon this continent. 
And when he uttered this atrocious sentiment, his form 
seemed to dilate, his pale, thin face, furrowed by the lines 
of thought and evil passions, kindled with malignant tri- 
umph, and his eye glowed and glared upon Southern 
Senators as though the fires of hell were burning in his 
heart;" 

"This passage," said Garfield, " I mark here as one of 
the notable signs of the time, that the gulf Which inter- 
venes between the position then occupied by the gentle- 
man from Mississippi ami the position he occupies to-day 
is so deep, so vast, that it indicates a progress worthy of all 
praise. I congratulate him and the country that in so 
short a time so great a change has been possible.'' He 
then .-aid : 

" Sow 1 ask the gentleman if he is quite sure, as a 
r of fact, that the Democratic party, its South- 
ern a- well as its Northern wing, have followed his own 
illustrious aid worthj example in the vast progress he 
has made Bince L859 ? He i as that the transforma- 

tion has been so complete that the Nation can Bafelj trust 
all the mosi precious fruits of the war in the hands of 
that party who stood with him in L859. When did it oc- 
cur? Aid our anxious inquiry, for the Nation ought to 
r< thai the great change has occurred before it can 
i\ tni-t i t <- destinies to the Democratic party." 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 405 

General Garfield pointed to the faet that the records 
of no Southern Legislature gave any evidence of such 
a transformation of public sentiment ; but, until a 
Republican Congress passed the great i; act of recon- 
struction," in March, 1807, these acts tended to the per- 
petuation of slavery in a new form. He asked : 

"And what was that act ? Gentlemen of the South, 
you are too deeply schooled in philosophy to take an um- 
brage at what I shall now say, for I am dealing only with 
history. You must know, and certainly do know, that the 
great body of the Nation which had carried the war to 
triumph and success knew that the eleven States that had 
opposed the Union had plunged their people into crime; 
a crime set down in the law — a law signed by President 
Washington — at the very top of the catalogue of crimes : 
the crime of treason, and all that follows it. You cer- 
tainly know that, under that law, every man who volun- 
tarily took up arms against the Union could have been 
tried, convicted, and hanged as a traitor to his country. 

"But I call your attention to the fact that the con- 
quering nation said, in this great work of reconstruction, 
• We will do nothing for revenge, everything for perma- 
nent peace;' and you know there never was a trial for 
treason in this country during the whole of the struggle 
nor after it ; no man was executed for treason ; no man 
was tried. There was no expatriation, no exile, no confis- 
cation after the war. The only revenge which the con- 
quering Nation gratified was this : In saying to the 
South, ' You may come back to your full place in the 
Union when you do these things : join with the other 
States in putting into the Constitution a provision that 
the National debt shall never be repudiated; that your 
.Rebel war debt shall never be paid ; and that all men, 
Avithout regard to race or color, shall stand equal before 
the law, not in suffrage, but in civil rights ; that these 



496 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

guaranties of liberty and public faith shall be lifted 

jh of political parties, above the legislation 

_ ■ ition of < ... shall be 

set m th>- firmament of the Constitution, to shine 

as lights forever and forever. And under that equal sky, 

Sjht of that equal sun, all men, of whatever 

or color, shall stand equal before the law."' 

• : . < r.trfield then pointed to the significant fact 
that all the amendments of the Constitution in favor of 
freedom had been adopted "lie stubborn . 

of the Northern and Southern Democracy, and of the 
is the Pn a IS t of the Democracy. 
" I call you to witness." lie said, "that, with the excep- 
tion of three or four Democratic Representatives who 
I for the abolition of slavery, the three great amend- 
mends — the Thirteenth, the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth 
— met the determined and united opposition of the 
Democracy of this country. Each of the amendments 
I by the gentleman was adopted against the 
whole 9 And two years after 

the a of the last amendment, in many of your 

is, they w be null and void." 

ring that the .-pirit of that 
' ' had not ei.; S id : 

"It is now time to inquire as to the fitness of this 

irty to take control of our great Nation and 

: the next four ; 

I put the question to the gentleman from M [Mr. 

:]. What has the Democratic party done to merit 

Ee tried to show in what rt 

1 sk him to .-how in what it 
ad I bel not misrepre- 

sent the _: party, that in the last sixteen 



JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 497 

years they have not advanced one great national idea that 
is not to-day exploded and as dead as Julius Caesar. And 
if any Democrat here will rise and name a great national 
doctrine his party has advanced, within that time, that 
is now alive and believed in, I will yield to hear him. [A 
pause.] In default of an answer, I will attempt to prove 
my negative. 

" What were the great central doctrines of the Demo- 
cratic party in the Presidential struggle of 18G0 ? The 
followers of Breckinridge said slavery has a right to go 
wherever the Constitution goes. Do you believe that to- 
day ? Is there a man on this continent that holds that 
doctrine to-day ? Not one. That doctrine is dead and 
buried. The other wing of the Democracy held that 
slavery might be established in the Territories if the 
people wanted it. Does anybody hold that doctrine to- 
day ? Dead, absolutely dead! 

" Come down to 1864. Your party, under the lead of 
Tilden and Vallandigham, declared the experiment of 
war to save the Union was a failure. Do you believe that 
doctrine to-day ? That doctrine was shot to death by the 
guns of Farragut at Mobile, and driven, in a tempest of 
fire, from the valley of the Shenandoah by Sheridan less 
than a month after its birth at Chicago. 

'"'Come down to 1868. You declared the Constitu- 
tional Amendment revolutionary and void. Does any 
man on this floor say so to-day? If so, let him rise and 
declare it. 

"Do you believe in the doctrine of the Broadhead 
letter of 1868, that the so-called Constitutional Amend- 
ments should be disregarded ? Xo ; the gentleman from 
Mississippi accepts the results of the war ! The Demo- 
cratic doctrine of 1868 is dead ! 

" I walk across that Democratic camping-ground as in 
a graveyard ! Under my feet resound the hollow ei 
of the dead. There lies Slavery, a black marble column 
at the head of its grave, on which I read : Died in t In- 
flames of the Civil War j loved in its life ; lamented in its 



498 THE BI0QRAPH7 OF 

death; followed to its bier by its only mourner, the Dem- 
ocratic party, but dead! And here is a double grave: 
Sacred to the memory of Squatter Sovereignty. Died in 
the campaign of 1860. On the reverse side: Sacred to 
the memory of the Dred Scott-Breckinridge doctrine. 
Both dead at the hands of Abraham Lincoln ! And here 
a monument of brimstone : Sacred to the memory of the 
Rebellion; the war against it is a failure ; Tilden el Valr 
landigham fecerunt, a. d. 1864. Dead on the field of 
battle; shot to death by the million guns of the Republic. 
The doctrine of Secession; of State Sovereignty. Dead. 
Expired in the flames of civil war, amidst the blazing 
rafters of the Confederacy, except that the modern 
./Eneas, fleeing out of the flames of that ruin, bears on 
his back another Anchises of State Sovereignty, and 
brings it here in the person of the honorable gentleman 
from the Appomattox district of Virginia [Mr. Tucker]. 
All else is dead. 

"Now, gentlemen, are you sad, are you sorry for these 
deaths ? Are you not glad that secession is dead ? that 
slavery is dead ? that Squatter Sovereignty is dead ? that 
the doctrine of the failure of the war is dead ? Then you 
are glad thai you were out-voted in I860, in 1864, in 1868, 
and in L872. If you have tears to shed over these losses, 
shed them in the graveyardj but not in this House of liv- 
ing men. I know that many a Southern man rejoices 
thai these issues are i\<->\<\. The gentleman from Missis- 
sippi has clothed his jo) with eloquence. 

"Now. gentlemen, come with me for a moment into 
the camp of the Republican party and review its career. 
(»ur central doctrine in L860 was that slavery should 
never extend itself over another fool of American soil. 
[b thai doctrine dead ? It is folded away like a victorious 
banner ; its truth is alive for evermore on this continent. 
In L864 we declared thai we would pul down the Rebel- 
lion and Secession. And that doetrine lives, and will 

live when the Becond Centennial has arrived ! Freedom, 
national, universal, and perpetual — our great Oonstitu- 



JAMES A. GAIIFIELD. 109 

tionul Amendments, are they alive or dead ? Alive, thank 
the God that shields both liberty and Union. Ami our 
national credit, saved from the assaults of Pendleton ; 
Bayed from the assaults of those who struck it later, rising 
higher and higher at home and abroad ; and only now in 
doubt lest its chief, its only enemy, the Democracy, 
should triumph in November. 

" Mr. Chairman, ought the Republican party to sur- 
render its truncheon of command to the Democracy ? 
. . . . I have no disposition, nor would it be just, to 
shield that party from fair and searching criticism. It 
has been called to meet questions novel and most difficult. 
It has made many mistakes. It has stumbled and blun- 
dered ; has had some bad men in it ; has suffered from 
the corruptions incident to the period following a great 
war ; and it has suffered rebuke and partial defeat in con- 
sequence. But has it been singular and alone in these 
respects ? With all its faults, I fearlessly challenge gen- 
tlemen to compare it with any party known to our pol- 
itics." 

General Garfield now took a hurried glance at the 
career of the House of Representatives under Democratic 
rule, to see what they had done or omitted to do ; what 
valuable work of general legislation they had accom- 
plished. He said : 

" We had hardly been here a month, when, among the 
first things demanded was that, in disregard of the deep 
feelings of the Northern people, it was proposed to crown 
Jefferson Davis with full and free amnesty, notwithstand- 
ing he had contemptuously declared he never would ask for 
it ; and this was to be done, or no amnesty was to be 
granted to any one. And when we objected because he 
was the author of the unutterable atrocities of Libby and 
Andersonville prisons, the debate which followed dis- 
closed the spirit and temper of the dominant party. 



50U THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

" We were hardly in our scuts when the gentleman 
from Virginia [Mr. Tucker] brought in a bill to repeal a 
statute of L866, which no Democrat had before that pro- 
posed to disturb, so far as I know — a statute which pro- 
vided that no man who voluntarily went into the rebellion 
against the Union should ever hold a commission in our 
army or navy. And a Democrat from my own Stale [Mr. 
Banning], the Chairman of the Committee on Military 
A hairs, became the champion of that bill; and this llouse 
id it. 

" Again, we had passed a law to protect the sanctity 
and safety of the ballot in national elections, so that the 
horrors of the Ku-klux and the White-Lines should not 
run riot at the polls, and among the earliest acts of this 
House was a clause added to one of the appropriation 
bills, to repeal the election law ; and to effect that repeal 
they kept up the struggle lately under the fierce rays of 
the dog-star. They have been compelled by a Republican 
Senate to abandon the attempt. 

"Again, what have they neglected? Early in the 
session, indeed, in the first days of it, a proposition was 
made, introduced by the gentleman from Maine [Mr. 
Blaine], so to amend the Constitution as to remove for- 
ever from the party politics of the country the vexed and 
dangerous question of Chinch and State, by preventing 
the use of the school funds for sectarian purposes. Thai 
amendment was scut to the Committee on the Judiciary, 
ep, perhaps to die ; for it is said to have been three 
times roted dew □ in thai committee. 

"Again, the Secretary of the Treasury officially in- 
formed ii- thai hie power was exhausted further to refund 
the debt; and thai if we would give him the requisite 

authority he could refund four or five hundred millions 

more a1 bo favorable a rate as to save the Treasury at leasl 
one per cent, per annum of the whole amount. The 
Senate passed the bill more than six months ago, bu< this 
1 [ouse baa taken no acl ion upon it. 

" Our revenues have been threatened wiih a deficit, 



JAMES A. 0A11FIELJ). .-.01 

and our industries have been shaken with alarm by bills 
reported to the House, but never brought to a vote ; for 
example, the Tariff Bill, floating lazily upon the stagnant 
waters of the House, 

" 'As idle as a painted ship 
Upon a painted ocean' — 

a promise to free-traders, a threat of danger to manufac- 
turers, but with no prospect or purpose of acting upon it. 

''And the Government has been crippled by the with- 
holding of necessary appropriations ; withheld, as 1 do 
not hesitate to say, for the purpose of making political 
capital at the coming election, in which the gentleman 
from Mississippi desires his party to succeed in the name 
of honesty and reform. His colleague was frank enough 
to declare that he wanted to reduce the general appropri- 
ations, so as to have money enough to devote to some 
scheme for his section, such as the cotton claims and the 
Southern Pacific Kailroad. 

•'•' But party necessity has held many waiting schemes 
and claims in leash. They are anchored in the lobbies 
and committee-rooms of this House till the election is 
over. There is the bill to refund the cotton tax to the 
amount of $60,000,000, waiting to be launched when the 
election is over. A subsidy of $100,000,000 up-stairs 
(Pacific Kailroad committee-room) is waiting to come 
down upon us for the Southern Pacific Kailroad when the 
election is over. There arc $38,000,000 of private claims, 
Southern claims, war claims, waiting to burst up from the 
committee-rooms below stairs when the election is over. 

"While these things surround us; while the very 
earth shakes with the tramp of the advancing army of 
schemers, who are coming ' with the Constitution and an 
appropriation,' the gentleman from Mississippi thinks 
that, as a measure of reform, the Democratic party ought 
at once to be brought back into power." 



509 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER XX. 

EtSBI MPTION, AND THE COUNTING OF r iHE ELECTORAL VOTES. 

All through his Congressional career, General Garfield 
had stood the inflexible champion of " honest money," and 
he was chiefly instrumental in procuring the passage by 
Congress, of a law providing for the resumption of specie 
payments on the first of January, 1ST9. It was about the 
last important act of the Republicans in Congress, before 
laying down their supremacy in the House of Represen- 
tatives. The Democrats opposed the measure with all 
their might; declared it could not be done ; denounced 
the Government for holding gold and thereby crippling 
the business of the country ; and charged every failure in 
business (which had been many during the fearful depres- 
sion in trade since the beginning of the panic in L8T3) 
to the Republican policy. 

That policy, especially that of resumption, was con- 
demned and ridiculed by the Democrats, but General 
Garfield, when others were disposed to yield, stood man- 
fully and bravely by bis principles and his policy concern- 
ing specie as the <>nly honest money, for lie felt confident 
that the " sober, second thought" of the people would 
sustain hifl position. The bill for resumption at the time 
specified was adopted, and when on the first of January, 

L879, resumption was actually ami easily effected, he 

.-poke thus prophetically of its blessings: 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 508 

"Successful resumption will greatly aid in bringing 
into the murky sky of our politics what the signal-service 
people call 'clearing weather.' It puts an end to a score 
of controversies which have long vexed the jrablic mind, 
and wrought mischief to business. It ends the angry 
contention over the difference between the money of the 
bondholder and the money of the plough-holder. It relieves 
enterprising Congressmen of the necessity of introducing 
twenty-five or thirty bills a session to furnish the people 
with cheap money, to prevent gold-gambling, and to make 
custom duties payable in greenbacks. It will dismiss to 
the limbo of things forgotten such Utopian schemes as a 
currency based iipon the magic circle of interconvertibility 
of two different forms of irredeemable paper, and the 
schemes of a currency ' based on the public faith,' and 
secured by ' all the resources of the nation ' in general, 
but upon no particular part of them. We shall still hear 
echoes of the old conflict, such as 'the barbarism and 
cowardice of gold and silver,' and the virtues of 'fiat 
money ;' but the theories which gave them birth will 
linger among us like belated ghosts, and soon find rest in 
the political grave of dead issues. 

" When we have fully awakened from these vague 
dreams, public opinion will resume its old channels, and 
the wisdom and experience of the fathers of our Constitu- 
tion will again be acknowledged and followed. 

"We shall agree, as our fathers did, that the yard- 
stick must have length, the pound must have weight, and 
the dollar must have value in itself, and that neither 
length, nor weight, nor value can be created by the fiat of 
law. Congress, relieved of the arduous task of regulating 
and managing all the business of our people, will address 
itself to the humbler but more important work of preserv- 
ing the public peace, and managing wisely the revenues 
and expenditures of the Government. Industry will no 
longer wait for the Legislature to discover easy roads to 
sudden wealth, but will begin again to rely upon labor 
and frugality as the only certain road to riches. Pros- 



.-,04 TEE BIOGRAPHY OP 

perity, which has long been waiting, is now ready to 
come. If we do no! rudely repulse her she will soon re- 
visit our people^ and will stay until another periodical 
craze Bliall drive her away." 

The result of the Presidential election in the Fall of 
L876, was a subject of passionate controversy. At that 
election there were, in all, three hundred and sixty-nine 
electors chosen. There was no dispute jabout one hundred 
and eighty-four Democratic electors and one hundred and 
sixty-six Republican electors ; but each party claimed the 
remaining nineteen. These had been chosen in South 
Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. 

Governor Kellogg of Louisiana requested that trust- 
worthy witnesses of the counting of the votes by the State 
Returning Board, should be sent from the North. Each 
party sent Mich a visiting committee, composed of honor- 
able men. Among the Republicans sent was General 
Garfield. The committees performed their duties faith- 
fully, and the result of the count of the Electoral Vote in 
the three .States above named, and in all the Union, was 
the giving of one majority for Rutherford 13. Hayes, the 
Republican candidate for the Presidency, over Samuel J. 
Tilden, the Democratic candidate. 

The defeated party were not satisfied, and procured 
the passage of a bill by Congress (January 29, LS77), en- 
i - An Act to provide for and regulate the Counting 
of votes for President and Vice-President, and the Dc- 
cision of Questions arising thereon, for the Term com- 
mencing March !, L877." It provided for a Commission 
of Fifteen, composed of five Justices of the Supreme ( 'ourt, 
five Senators and five Representatives. General Garfield, 
satisfied with the old methods of counting, opposed the 




<PI£ESig)EJTT jflllTHUIl. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 50? 

bills, and on January 25, made a powerful speech against 

it. The bill passed, and General Garfield was chosen one 
of the Republican members of the Commission. That 
Commission, after patient labor, decided that Mr. Hayes 
had been elected President of the United States. 

In the course of the debate on the Electoral Commis- 
sion, Democratic members intimated that civil war might 
ensue if they were " deprived of their rights." This 
covert menace aroused General Garfield! Ln his speech on 
the subject, he said : 

" When you tell me that civil war is threatened by 
any party or State in this Republic, you have given me a 
supreme reason why an American Congress should refuse, 
with unutterable scorn, to listen to those who threaten, or 
do any act whatever under the coercion of threats by any 
power on earth. With all my soul, I despise your threat 
of civil war, come it from what quarter or what it may. 
Brave men, certainly a brave nation, will do nothing under 
such compulsion. We are intrusted with the work of 
obeying and defending the Constitution. I will not be 
deterred from obeying it, because somebody threatens to 
destroy it. I dismiss all that class of motives as unworthy 
of Americans." 

He continued : 

" What, then, are the grounds on which we should 
consider a bill like this ? It would be unbecoming in me 
or in any member of this Congress to oppose this bill on 
mere technical or trifling grounds. It should be opposed, 
if at all, for reasons so broad, so weighty, as to overcome 
all that has been said in its favor, and all the advantages 
which I have here admitted may follow from its passage. 
I do not wish to diminish the stature of my antagonist; I 
do not wish to undervalue the points of strength in a 
measure before I question its propriety. It is not enough 



508 THE niOO HA PHY OF 

that this bill will tide us over a present danger, however 
great. Let us for a moment forget Hayes and Tilden, 
Republicans and Democrats; let us forgo our own epoch 
and our own generation : and, entering a broader field, 
inquire how this thing which we arc about to do will 
affect the great future of our Republic, and in what condi- 
tion, if we pass this bill, we shall transmit our institu- 
tions to those who shall come after us. The present good 
which we shall achieve by it may be very great ; yet if 
the evils that will flow from it in the future must be 
greater, it would be base in us to flinch from trouble by 
entailing remediless evils upon our children. 

" In my view, then, the foremost question is this : 
What will be the effect of this measure upon our institu- 
tions ? I cannot make that inquiry intelligibly without a 
brief reference to the history of the Constitution, and to 
some of the formidable questions which presented them- 
selves to our fathers nearly a hundred years ago, when 
they set up this goodly frame of government. 

"Among the foremost difficulties, both in point of 
time and magnitude, was how to create an executive head 
of the nation. Our fathers encountered that difficulty 
the first morning after they organized and elected the 
officers of the Constitutional Convention. The first res- 
olution, introduced by Randolph of Virginia, on the 29th 
day of May, recognized thai great question, and invited 
the Convention to its examination. The men who made 
the Constitution were deeply read in the profoundest 
political philosophy of their day. They had learned from 
Montesquieu, from Locke, from Fenelon, and other great 
teachers of the human race, that liberty is impossible 
without a char ami distinct separation of the three great 
powers of government. A generation before their epoch, 
Montesquieu had said : 

"'When the legislative and executive powers are 

united in the same person or in the same body of magis- 
trates, there can be uo liberty, because apprehensions may 



JAMHs A. QARV1ELD. 



509 



arise lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyran- 
nical laws to execute them in a tyrannical manner. 
* * * * * # 

'••There would he an end of eveiythiiig were the 
same man or the same body, whether of the nobles or of 
the people, to exercise these three powers, that of enact- 
ing the laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and 
of trying the causes of individuals.' 

" This was a fundamental truth in the American mind, 
as it had long been cherished and practiced in the British 
empire. 

''There, as in all monarchies, the creation of a chief 
executive was easily regulated by adopting a dynasty, and 
following the law of primogeniture. 

"But our fathers had drawn the deeper lesson of lib- 
erty from the inspirations of this free New World, that 
their Chief Executive should be born, not of a dynasty, 
but of the will of a free people, regulated by law. 

" In the course of their deliberations upon this subject, 
there were suggested seven different plans, which may be 
grouped under two principal heads or classes. One group 
comprised all the plans for creating the Chief Executive 
by means of some one of the pre-existing political organi- 
zations of the country. First and foremost was the prop- 
osition to authorize one or both Houses of the National 
Legislature to elect the Chief Executive. Another was to 
confer that power upon the governors of the States or 
upon the legislatures of the States. Another, that he 
should be chosen directly by the people themselves under 
the laws of the States. The second group comprised all 
the various, plans for creating a new and separate instru- 
mentality for making the choice. 

"At first the proposition that the Executive should 
be elected by the National Legislature was received by 
the Convention with almost unanimous approval : and 
for the reason that up to that time Congress had dene nil 
that was done in the way of national government. It had 
created the nation, and led its fortunes through a thousand 



510 Till: BIOOBAPM7 OF 

peril.-, had declared and achieved independence, ami had 
preserved the liberty of the people in the midst of a great 
war. Though Congress had failed to secure a firm and 

stable Government after the war. yet its glory was not 
forgotten. As Congress bad created the Union, it was 
most natural that our fathers should say Congress 
should also create the Chief Executive of the nation. 
And within two weeks after the Convention assembled 
they voted for that plan with absolute unanimity. 

"But with equal unanimity they agreed that this plan 
would be fatal to the stability of the Government they 
were about to establish, if they did not couple with it 
some provision that should make the President's functions 
independent of the power that created him. To effect 
this, they provided that the President should be ineligi- 
ble for re-election. They said it would never do to create 
a Chief Executive by the voice of the National Legislature, 
and then allow him to be re-elected by that same voiee; 
for lie would thus become their creature. 

•' And so, from the first day of their session in May to 
within live days of its close in September, they grappled 
with the mighty question. I have many time.-, and re- 
cently very carefully, gone through all the records t hat- 
are left to as of that great transaction. I find that more 
than oin--. \eiith of all the pages of the Madison papers are 
devoted to this Samson of questions, how the Executive 
should be chosen and made independent of the organiza- 
tion that made the choice. This topic alone occupied 
more than one-seventh of all the time of the Convention. 

••After a long and earnest debate, after numerous 

votes and reconsiderations, they were obliged utterly to 

abandon the plan of creating the Chief Executive by 

means of the National Legislature. 1 will noi Btop now 

ti> prove t he statement by a dozen or more pungent quota- 

iVoin the masters of political science in that great 

ably, in which they declared that it would lie ruin- 

o the liberty of the people and to tie- permanence of 

the republic if they did not absolutely exclude the National 



JAMES .1. QARFlELD. 511 

Legislature from any share in the election of the Presi- 
dent. 

"They pointed with glowing eloquence to the sad but 
instructive fate of those brilliant Italian republics that 
were destroyed because there was no adequate separation 
of powers, and because their senates overwhelmed and 
swallowed up the executive power, and, as secret and 
despotic conclaves, became the destroyers of Italian 
liberty. 

"At the close of the great discussion, when the last 
vote on this subject was taken by our fathers, they were 
almost unanimous in excluding the National Legislature 
from any share whatever in the choice of the Chief Ex- 
ecutive of the nation. They rejected all the plans of the 
first group, and created a new instrumentality. They 
adopted the system of electors. When that plan was 
under discussion they used the utmost precaution to 
hedge it about by every conceivable protection against the 
interference or control of Congress. 

"In the first place, they said the States shall create 
the electoral colleges. They allowed Congress to have 
nothing whatever to do with the creation of the colleges, 
except merely to fix the time when the States should ap- 
point them. And, in order to exclude Congress by posi- 
tive prohibition, in the last days of the Convention they 
provided that no member of either House of Congress 
should be appointed an elector ; so that not even by the 
personal influence of any one of its members could the 
Congress interfere Avith the election of a President. 

" The creation of a President under our Constitution 
consists of three distin ^t steps : First, the creation of the 
electoral colleges; second, the vote of colleges; and, third, 
the opening and counting of their votes. This is the 
simple plan of the Constitution. 

" The creation of the colleges is left absolutely to the 
States, within the five limitations I had the honor to 
mention to the House a few days ago. First, it must be 
a State that appoints electors; second, the State is limited 



512 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

as to the number of electors they may appoint ; third, 
electors .-hall not be members of Congress, nor officers of 
the United States; fourth, the time for appointing elec- 
tors may be fixed by Congress ; and. fifth, the time when 
their appointment is announced, which must be before the 
date for giving their votes, may also be fixed by Con- 
gress. 

•• These rive simple limitations, and these alone, were 
laid npon the State-. Every other act, fact, and thing 
sible to be done in creating the electoral colleges was 
absolutely and uncontrollably in the power of the States 
themselves. Within these limitations, Congress has no 
more power to touch them in this work than England or 
France. That is the first step. 

"The second is still plainer and simpler, namely, the 
work of the colleges. They were created as an independ- 
ent and separate power, or set of powers, for the sole pur- 
pose of electing a President. Tiny were created by the 
States. Congress has just one thing to do with them, 
and only one ; it may fix the day when they shall meet. 
By the art of L792 Congress fixed the day as it still stands 
i;i the law ; and there the authority of the Congress over 
the colleges ended. 

•• There was a later act— of 1S4">— which gave to the 
States the authority t*. provide by law for filling vacan- 
cies of electors in these colleges ; and Congress has passed 
no other law on the subject. 

••The States having created them, the time of their 
aemblage having been fixed by Congress, and their 
power to till vacancies baving been regulated by State 
law-, the colleges are a- independent m the exercise of 
their functions a.- is any departmenl of the Government 
within its Bphere. Being thus equipped, their powers are 
strained by a few Bimple limitations laid upon them by 
the Constitution itself : first, they must vote for a native- 
born citizen ; second, fora man who ha- been fourteen years 
;l ,-,. -i, lent of tin- bnii- d States : third, at least one of the 
■m for whom tlu\ \..te must not be a citizen of their 



. JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 518 

own State ; fourth, the mode of voting and certifying 
their returns is prescribed by the Constitution itself. 
Within these simple and plain limitations the electoral 
colleges are absolutely independent of the States and of 
Congress. 

" One fact in the history of the Constitutional Con- 
vention, which I have not seen noticed in any of the re- 
cent debates, illustrates very clearly how careful our 
fathers were to preserve these colleges from the interfer- 
ence of Congress, and to protect their independence by 
the bulwarks of the Constitution itself. In the draft 
of the electoral system reported September 4, 1787, it was 
provided that Congress 'may determine the time of 
choosing and assembling of the electors and the maimer of 
certifying and transmitting their votes.' 

" That was the language of the original draft ; but 
our fathers had determined that the National Legislature 
should have nothing to do with the action of the colleges ; 
and the words that gave Congress the power to prescribe 
the manner of certifying and transmitting their votes 
were stricken out. The instrument itself prescribed the 
mode. Thus Congress was wholly expelled from the 
colleges. The Constitution swept the ground clear of all 
intruders, and placed its own imperial guardianship 
around the independence of the electoral colleges by for- 
bidding even Congress to enter the sacred circle. No 
Congressman could enter ; and, except to fix the day of 
their meeting, Congress could not speak to the electors. 

" These colleges are none the less sovereign and inde- 
pendent because they exist only for a day. They meet 
on the same day in all the States ; they do their work 
summarily in one day, and dissolve forever. There is no 
power to interfere, no power to recall them, no power to 
revise their action. Their work is done ; the record is 
made up, signed, sealed, and transmitted ; and thus the 
second great act in the Presidential election is completed. 
I ought to correct myself ; the second act is the Presi- 
dential election. The election is finished the hour when 



514 THE BIOGRAPHY OF ■ 

the electoral colleges have cast their votes and sealed up 
the record. 

"Still, there is a third Btep in the process; and it is 
shorter, plainer, simpler than the other two. These 
sealed certificates of the electoral colleges are forwarded 
to the President of the Senate, where they rest under the 
silence of the seals for more than two month?. The Con- 
stitution assumes that the result of the election is still 
unknown. But on a day fixed by law, and the only day 
of all the days of February on which the law commands 
Congress to be in session, the last act in the plan of elect- 
ing a President is to be performed. 

" How plain and simple are the words that describe 
this third and last step ! Here they are: 

"'The President tof the Senate shall, in the presence 
of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all 
the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted.' 

"Here is no ambiguity. Two words dominate and 
inspire the clause. Tiny are the words open and count. 
These words are not shrouded in the black-letter mysteries 
of the law. They are plain words, understood by every 
man who speaks our mother-tongue, and need no lexicon 
or commentary. 

"Consider the grand and simple ceremonial by which 
the third act is to be completed. On the day fixed by law, 
the two Houses of Congress are assembled. The President 
of the Senate, who, bj the Constitution, has been made 
the custodian of the sealed certificates Erom all the 
electoral colleges, take.- bis place. The Constitution re- 
quires a ' person ' and a ' presence.' Thai ' person' is the 
President of the Senate; and thai 'presence 5 is the 
f presence* of the two Houses. Then two things are to be 
done. '1 be certificat< b are to be opened, and the votes are 
U? be counted. These are not legislative acts, bul clearly 
and plainly executive acts. I challenge anj man to find 
anywhere an accepted definition of an executivi acl thai 



.IAMKS .1. QARFIELD. 515 

does not include both these. They cannot be tortured 
into a meaning that will carry them beyond the boundaries 
of executive action. And one of these acts the President 
of the Seriate is peremptorily ordered to perform. The 
Constitution commands him to 'open all the certificate's. 1 
Certificates of what? Certificates of the votes of the 
electoral colleges. Not any certificates that anybody may 
choose to send, but certificates of electors appointed by 
the States. The President of the Senate is presumed to 
know what are the States in the Union, who are their 
officers, and, when he opens the certificates, lie learns 
from the official record who have been appointed electors, 
and he finds their votes. 

"The Constitution contemplated the President of the 
Senate as the Vice-President of the United States, the 
elect of all the people. And to him is confided the great 
trust, the custodianship of the only official record of the 
election of President. What is it to 'open the certifi- 
cates'? It would be a narrow and inadequate view of 
that word to say that it means only the breaking of the 
seals. To open an envelope is not to ' open the certifi- 
cates.' The certificate is not the paper on which the 
record is made ; it is the record itself. To open the cer- 
tificate is not a physical, but an intellectual act. It is to 
make patent the record ; to publish it. When that is 
done the election of President and Vice-President is pub- 
lished. But one thing remains to be done ; and here the 
language of the Constitution changes from the active to 
the passive voice, from the personal to the impersonal. 
To the trusted custodian of the votes succeeds the imper- 
sonality of arithmetic ; the votes have been made known ; 
there remains only the command of the Constitution, 
' They shall be counted ; ' that is, the numbers shall be 
added up. 

"No further act is required. The Constitution itself 
declares the result : 

" ' The person having the greatest number of votes 



516 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

for President Bhall be President, if such number be a ma- 
jority of the whole number uf electors appointed.' 

• [f no person has such majority, the House of Repre- 
sentatives shall immediately choose a President; not the 
Bouse as organized for Legislation, but a new electoral 
college is created out of the members of the House, by 
means of which each State has one vote for President, 
and only one. 

••T<> review the ground over which I have traveled; 
The several acts thai constitute the election of a Presi- 
dent may be symbolized by a pyramid consisting of three 
massive, separate blocks. The first, the creation of tho 
electoral college by the States, is the broad base. It em- 
braces the legislative, the judicial, and the executive 
powers of the States. All the departments of the State 
Government and all the voters of the State cooperate in 
shaping and perfecting it. 

"The action of the electoral colleges forms the second 
block, perfect in itself, and independent of the others, 
superimposed with exactness upon the first. 

• The opening and counting of the votes of the col- 
leges is the little block that crowns and completes the 
pyramid. 

"Such. Mr. Speaker, was the grand and simple plan 
by which the Trainers of the Constitution empowered all 
the people, acting under the laws of the several States, to 
create special and select colleges of independent electon 
to choose a President, who Bhould be, not the creature of 
Congress, nor of the States, but the Chief Magistrate of 
the whole nation, the elect of all the people. 

•• When the Constitution was completed and sent to 
the people of the States for ratification, it was subjected 
to th. • criticism of the ablest men of that genera- 

tion. Those sections which related to the election of 
President not only escaped censure, but received the 
highest commendation. Thi venth number of 

Federalist. 5 written by Alexander Hamilton, was 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 517 

devoted to this feature of the instrument, That great 
writer congratulated the country that the Convention had 
devised a method that made the President free frum all 
preexisting bodies, that protected the process of election 
from all interference by Congress, and from the cabals and 
intrigues so likely to arise in legislative bodies. 

" ' The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate 
of the United States is almost the only part of the system 
of any consequence which has escaped without severe cen- 
sure, or which has received the slightest mark of approba- 
tion from its opponents. The most plausible of these 
who has appeared in print has even deigned to admit 
that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. 
I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm 
that, if the manner of it be not perfect, is it at least ex- 
cellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages 
the union of which was to be wished for. It was desir- 
able that the sense of the people should operate in the 
choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to 
be confided. This end will be answered by committing the 
right of making it not to any preestablishcd body, but to 
men chosen by the people forthe special purpose and at the 
particular juncture. . . . They have not made the appoint- 
ment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies 
of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to pros- 
titute their votes ; but they have referred it in the first 
instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to 
be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and 
sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have 
excluded from eligibility to this trust all those who 
from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to 
the President in office. . . . 

" ' Another and no less important desideratum was 
that the Executive should be independent for his continu- 
ance in office on all but the people themselves. He might 
otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to hi3 complais- 
ance for thoso whose favor was necessary to duration of 
his official consequence. This advantage will also be se- 
cured by making his reelection to depend on the specicl 
body of representatives, deputed by the society for the 
single purpose of making the important choice. — Front, 
the Sixty-seventh Number of " The Federalist," ' 



.-.is T1IK BIOGRAPHY OF 

" The earliest commentator upon the Constitution, St.- 
Gteorge Tucker of Virginia writing at the beginning of 
fche present century, made this clause of the Constitution 
the subject of special eulogy, and pointed to the fact that 
all the proceedings in relation to the election of a Presi- 
dent were to be brief, Bummary, and decisive ; that the 
right of the President to bis office depends upon no one 
but the people themselves, and that the certificates cf his 
elect ion were to be publicly opened ' and counted in the 
presence of the whole National Legislature.' 

" 'The electors, we perceive, are to assemble on one 
and the same day, in all the different States, at as many 
different places, at a very considerable distance from each 
other, and on that day are simply to give their votes ; 
they then disperse and return to their respective habita- 
tions and occupations immediately. No pretext can be 
had for delay; no opportunity is furnished for intrigue 
and cabal. The certificates of their votes . . . are 
to be publicly opened and counted in the presence of the 
■whole National Legislature. . . . There is no room 
for the turbulence of a Campus Martius or a Polish Diet 
on the one hand, nor for the intrigues of the Sacred Col- 
lege or a Venetian Senate on the other; unless when it 
unfortunately happens that two persons, having a major- 
ity of the whole number of electors in their favor, have 
likewise an equal number of votes, or -where by any other 
means the election may devolve upon the House of Rep- 
tatives. Then, indeed, intrigue and cabal may have 
their full scope ; then may the existence of the Union be 
put in extreme hazard. — Tucker's " Blackstone" Appen- 
dix, jip. 320— '27.' 

"The authorities I have quoted show that , great as 
was the satisfaction of the people with the mode of choos- 
ing a President, there was still an apprehension that 
trouble would arise from Congress by the only avenue 
left open for its influence, namely, the contingency in 
wHich the House might elect, lwery other doorwas shut 
and barred againsl the interference of Congress or any 
member of Ooneri 




QUEEjN VICTOj 



JAMES A. UARFIELD. 521 



CHAPTER XXI. 



GARFIELD S LATEST SERVICES IN CONGRESS. 

Before General Garfield's return from Louisiana^ 
there was an election for Speaker held in the House, to 
fill the place of Mr. Kerr, who had been removed by 
death. The Republicans in the House cast their votes 
for Garfield. The Democrats, having a majority, elected 
one of their own party for Speaker. It was really only a 
complimentary vote on the part of the Republicans, for 
they knew they could not elect a Speaker. 

Mr. Blaine had now left the House, and gone to the 
Senate, and General Garfield became the Republican 
leader in the popular branch of Congress. One who had 
been familiar with his Congressional career for yean-, 
wrote of him, during the Sessions of the Forty-fifth Con- 
gress, as follows : 

" As a leader in the House he is more cautious and 
less dashing than Blaine, and his judicial turn of mind 
makes him too prone to look for two sides of a question 
for him to be an efficienf partisan. When the issue fairly 
touches his convictions, however, he becomes thoroughly 
aroused, and strikes tremendous blows. Blaine's tactics 
were to continually harass the enemy by sharp-shooting 
surprises and picket-firing. Garfield waits for an oppor- 
tunity to deliver a pitched battle, and his generalship is 
shown to best advantage when the fight is a fair one. and 
waged on grounds where each party thinks itself strong- 
est. Then his solid shot of argument are exceedingly 
effective." 



522 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

At the opening of the Forty-fifth Congress (1877-70), 
General Garfield was again the Republican candidate for 
Speaker, but the Democrats having still a majority in the 
Eouse, he was, of course, not elected. He was again 

rned a position on the Committee of "W"ays and Means, 
of which Mr. Wood was again made chairman ; and he 
was also one of the Committee on Rules. He was again 
the Republican leader of the House, and most ably and 
wisely did he perform the functions of that leadership. 

Mr. Hayes took his seat as President of the United 
States (March 4, 1877), after delivering a conciliatory 
Inaugural Address. His corresponding policy — that of 
conciliation toward the people of the South — soon met 
with strenuous opposition from the more radical Repub- 
licans. These formed a large wing of the Republican 
party. Many considered that policy ill-advised and dan- 
gerous. They did not believe that a political millennium 
had arrived — that the lamb and the lion were ready or 
willing to " lie dowm together;" and the President was 
latterly assailed by leaders and portions of the press of 
his own party. lie was even denounced as a "traitor" 
and a " renegade ; " but before the closing of his adminis- 
tratiun. these very men and these newspapers, with a few 
exceptions, candidly acknowledged that he was right and 
that they were wrong. 

At the beginning of his conciliatory policy, President 
1 laves had comparatively few defenders. The wise and 
ju-t Garfield was among them, and used his utmost en- 
deavors t<> prevent a rupture in the party. A caucus 
was dreaded, and, chiefly through Garfield's exertions, 
no caucus was held until Mr. Potter, of New York, made 
amotion for the appointment of a Committee to inves- 



JAMBS A. HARFIELT). 528 

tigate the title of Mr. Hayes to his seat. This united the 
Republican party for awhile. They held a caucus, and 
worked harmoniously in denouncing- the " Potter in Mi- 
tigation " as revolutionary in its tendency and intent. In 
a speech in the House on " The Policy of Pacification,'' 
General Garfield said, after briefly reviewing the policy 
of President Grant in this direction : 

" Men who looked upon the duties of the administra- 
tion as only civil, criticised it savagely because the 
military element entered into it so largely. Men who 
looked at the administration from the strong ground of 
military government, criticised it as too feeble — lacking 
the force and vigor of military command. But out of 
these mingled elements, step by step, and year by year, 
the administration emerged from the entanglements of 
the situation, working its way up to the level of peace. 

" Our great military chieftain, Avho brought the war 
to a successful conclusion, had command as chief execu- 
tive during eight years of turbulent, difficult, and eventful 
administration. He saw his administration drawing to a 
close, and his successor elected — who, studying the ques- 
tion, came to the conclusion^ that the epoch had arrived, 
the hour had struck, when it was possible to declare 
that the semi-military period was ended, and the era of 
peace methods, of civil processes, should be fully inaugu- 
rated. With that spirit, and at the beginning of this 
third era, Rutherford B. Hayes came into the Presidency. 
I ought to say that, in my judgment, more than any other 
public man we have known, the present head of the ad- 
ministration is an optimist. He looks on the best side of 
things. He is hopeful for the future, and prefers to look 
upon the bright side rather than upon the dark and sinister 
side of human nature. His faith is larger than the faith 
of most of us; and with his faith and hope ho has gone to 
the very verge of the Constitution in offering both hands 
of fellowship and all the olive-branches of peace to bring 



524 THE BI0GRAPH7 OF 

back good feeling, and achieve the real pacification to 
this country." 

At the Special Session of Congress in the Fall of 
1^77. the opposere of Resumptiou made determined 
efforts i" carry oul their financial policy. General Ewing, 
of Ohio, Introduced a bill in tin- Bouse, tor the repeal of 
the Resumption Act. Then began another battle on 
Finance, in which General (iarfield dealt heavy blows 
upon the antagonists of the National honor and pros- 
perity. He delivered, in the House, one of his most 
effective speeches on the subject, but argument and re- 
monstrance were futile. The bill passed the House, but 
failed to receive the concurrence of the Senate. 

In March following, William D. Kelley, of Penn- 
sylvania, in a speech in which he used offensive personal* 
language, attempted to overturn the doctrines of Gar- 
fieid's speech. The next day, Garfield replied to it, 
meeting Kelley's theories with stubborn facts, and turning 
the latter's historical references against that speaker so 
adroitly that the whole House was tilled with admiration. 
The mosi telling part of the speech was where he 
showed, from the record, that, in L865, lvelley had ad- 
vocated Resumption as a necessity. This thrust was 
enjoyed by his hearers on both sides, ami set the whole 
country laughing at the vanquished Pennsylvania^ 

General Garfield strcnuou.-dy opposed the Silver I'.ills, 
so called, which were introduced and caused fierce con- 
during the consideration of therepeal of the Resump- 
tion Act. Within the circle of nine States around and in- 
cluding < )hio. ( ieneral ( iartield was theonly political leader 

on either side who voted against measures for oppressing 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 525 

the industry of the country with depreciated silver coins, 
which the "Bland Bill" contemplated. He was not 

opposed to silver; he was in favor of it. But lie insisted 
that silver coin should be equal in value with gold coin, 
so that every dollar should be at par before the law. This 
result was finally reached by a modification of the 
original bill, in which it was provided that the coinage 
of silver should be of a certain standard, and the issue 
should not exceed a certain sum a month. This limit- 
ation saved the country from a great evil. 

The " Honest. Money League of the Northwest," having 
its headquarters in Chicago, celebrated the Act of Re- 
sumption at a meeting there on January 2, 1879. Garfield 
was invited to address them. He accepted the invitation, 
and made an admirable speech, bristling all over with 
facts and sound opinions. 

Soon after this, and nearly two months after Resumption 
had been most successfully accomplished, General Ewing 
was the leader in a solemn farce, by an attempt to carry 
out his favorite measure of repeal of the Resumption Act. 
The bill was buried beyond a hope of resurrection under 
a resolution to lay it on the table. Some solemn funeral 
orations were delivered, while General Garfield enlivened 
the spirits of the mourners with a jocular speech in which 
he spoke of the buried bill as a " belated ghost wandering 
back, k revisiting the glimpses of the moon,' and awak- 
ing old familiar echoes." 

The Forty-sixth Congress (1 879-' 81) met in special 
session on March 18, 1879. The cause of this special ses- 
sion being called was the fact that at the last session of 
the Forty-fifth Congress, just closed, two of the twelve 
grej t appropriation bills had failed to become laws, namely, 



526 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

the Army Bill and the Legislative, Executive and Judicial 
Bill, the two requiring an appropriation of about 
$40,000,000. 

The cause of this failure was the determination on the 
part of the Democratic majority in the House, that three 
measures, distinct and independent, namely : the material 
modification of the laws respecting the use of the Army; 
the repeal of the Jurors' Test Oath; and the repeal of 
the laws regulating the election of members of Congress, 
should be incorporated in these appropriation bills, as 
" riders." The Senate, in which there was a small He- 
publican majority, refused to incorporate these measures, 
and there was a dead-lock, which was not broken when 
that Congress expired. Through Senator Beck of Ken- 
tucky, the Democrats in the House threatened to block 
the wheels of Government, saying in substance: 

" Unless these rights are secured to the people in the 
bill sent to the Senate, they will refuse, under their con- 
stitutional right, to make appropriations to carry on the 
Government, if the dominant majority in the Senate in- 
sists upon the maintenance of those laws and refuses to 
consent to their repeal." 

At the special session an Army bill was introduced 
(March 27, 1879), without the clause respecting the reor- 
ganization of the army, but containing the following ob- 
jectionable section : 

" No military or naval officer, or other person engaged 
in the civil, military, or naval service of the United States, 
shall order, bring, keep, or have under his authority or 
control, any troops or armed men at the place where any 
general or special election is held in any State, unless it 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 527 

be necessary to repel the armed enemies of the United 
States;" and that section 5528 of the Revised Statutes 
be amended so as to read as follows : "Every officer of 
the army or navy, or other person in the civil, military, 
or naval service of the United States, who orders, brings, 
keeps, or has under his authority or control, any troopa 
or armed men at any place where a general or special 
election is held in any State, unless such force be neces- 
sary to repel armed enemies of the United States, shall 
be fined not more than $5,000 and suffer imprisonment at 
hard labor not less than three months nor more than five 
years." 

On the 29th General Garfield made a telling speecli 
in which was embodied a terrible indictment of the policy 
of the majority in the House. He said : 

" I have no hope of being able to convey to the mem- 
bers of this House my own conviction of the very great 
gravity and solemnity of the crisis which this decision of 
the Chair and of the Committee of the "Whole has brought 
upon this country. I wish I could be proved a false 
prophet in reference to the result of this action. I wish 
I could be overwhelmed with the proof that I am utterly 
mistaken in my views. But no view I have ever taken 
has entered more deeply and more seriously into my con- 
victions than this : that this House has to-day resolved to 
enter upon a revolution against the Constitution and Gov- 
ernment of the United States. I do not know that that 
intention exists in the minds of half the Representatives 
who occupy the other side of this hall. I hope it does 
not. I am ready to believe it does not exist to any large 
extent. But I mean to say the consequence of the pro- 
gramme just adopted, if persisted in, is nothing less than 
the total subversion of this Government." 

General Garfield then reviewed the history of tin- 
struggle in the preceding Congress, and pointed out sev- 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

eral ways in which <>nr government could be destroyed 
without armed revolution. He spoke of Public Opinion 
as the sovereign power, amply able and always willing to 
guard all the approaches for assailants on the life of the 
Nation, i [e continued : 

"Up to this hour our sovereign has never failed us. 
There has never been such a refusal to exercise those pri- 
ma r\ functions of sovereignty as either to endanger or 
to cripple the Government, nor have the majority of the 
Representatives of that sovereign, in either house of Con- 
. ever before announced their purpose to use their 
voluntary powers for its destruction; and now, for the 
first time in our history, and, I will add, for the first time 
in two centuries in the history of any English-speaking 
nation, is it proposed and insisted that these voluntary 
powers shall be used for the destruction of the Govern- 
ment. 1 want it distinctly understood that the proposi- 
tion which I read at the beginning of my remarks, and 
which is the programme announced to the American peo- 
ple to-day, is this : that if this House cannot have its own 
way in certain matters, not connected with appropriations, 
it will so use, or refrain from using, its voluntary powers, 
as to destroy the Government." 

****** 

" Our theory of Law is free consent. That is the 
granite foundation of our whole superstructure. Nothing 
in the Republic can be law without consent — the free con- 
sent of the House; the free consent of the Senate; the 
free consent of the Executive, or, if he refuse' it. the free 
consent of two-thirds of these bodies. Will any man deny 
that? Will any man challenge a line of the statement 
that tree consent is the foundation rock of all our institu- 
tions ? And mi the programme announced two weeks ago 

eras that, if the Senate refused to consent to the demand 

..f the House, the Government should stop. Ami the 
propo ition was then, and the programme is now. ihat. 



./I ]£E8 I. &ARFIE1 D 

siltliough there is not a Senate Lu be coerced, there i 
a third independent branch in the legislative power of the 
Government whose consent is to be coerced at the peril of 
the destruction of this Government ; that is, if the Presi- 
dent, in the discharge of his duty, shall exercise his plain 
constitutional right to refuse his consent to this proposed 
legislation, the Congress will so use its voluntary powers 
as to destroy the Government. This is the proposition 
which Ave confront ; and we denounce it as revolution. 

"It makes no difference, Mr. Chairman, what the 
issue is. If it were the simplest and most inoffensive prop- 
osition in the world, yet if you demand, as a matter of 
coercion, that it shall be adopted against the free consent 
prescribed in the Constitution, every fair-minded man in 
America is bound to resist you as much as though his own 
life depended upon his resistance." 

General Garfield then showed that the laws now pro- 
posed to be repealed w T ere of Democratic origin, and he 
denounced this attempt of a political party to carry their 
party measures by forcing "riders" on appropriation bills 
a-^ a "New Rebellion," which differed from the old one of 
1861 only in this: "The first proposed to shoot, the 
second to starve the Government to death." He con- 
tinued : 

"Now, by a method which the wildest secessionist 
scorned to adopt, it is proposed to make this new assault 
upon the life of the Republic. 

"Gentlemen, we have calmly surveyed this new field 
of conflict ; we have tried to count the cost of the struggle, 
as we did that of 1861, before we took up your gage of 
battle. Though no human foresight could forecast the 
awful loss of blood and treasure, yet in the name of 
liberty and union we accepted the issue and fought it out 
to the end. We made the appeal to our august Bovereign, 



530 THE BIOGRAPHY OP 

to tin' omnipotent public opinion of America, to determine 
whether the Union should perish at your hands. You 
know the result. And now, lawfully, in the exercise of 
of our right as Representatives, we take up the gage you 
have this day thrown down, and appeal again to our com- 
mon sovereign to determine whether you shall he permit- 
ted to destroy the principle of free consent in legislation 
under the threat of starving the Government to death. 

" We are ready to pass these bills for the support of 
the Government at any hour when you will offer them in 
the ordinary way, by the methods prescribed by the Con- 
stitution. If you offer those other propositions of legislation 
as separate measures, we will meet you in the fraternal spirit 
of fair debate and will discuss their merits. Some of your 
measures many of us will vote for in separate bills. But 
you shall not coerce any independent branch of this 
Government, even by the threat of starvation, to surrender 
its voluntary powers until the question has been appealed 
to the sovereign and decided in your favor. On this 
ground we plant ourselves, and here we will stand to the 
end." 

Fifteen or twenty members attempted to answer and 
demolish the arguments of Garfield, but utterly failed; 
and in his reply to them on April 4, lie delivered another 
powerful and equally effective speech. The bill with 
it- •• riders " was carried of course, but met the veto of the 
President. 

During the remainder of the special Session, and 
through the long regular Session of the Forty-sixth Con- 
gress (1879-80), General Garfield took a loading part in 
the debates on the various subjects that wore brought be- 
fore the Bouse. It wason the 27th of June, L879, that 
he made the mosl effective of his later speeches in Con- 
gress. It was after Democratic members had revived the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 581 

doctrine of State Sovereignty in its most obnoxious 
features in debates on the Marshal's Appropriations Bill. 
The House was in the Committee of the Whole, when 
General Garfield said : 

"Mr. Chairman : 'To this favor' it has come at lust. 
The great fleet that set out on the 18th of March, with 
all its freightage and armament, is so shattered that now 
all the valuables it carried are embarked in this little 
craft, to meet whatever fate the sea and the storm may 
offer. This little bill contains the residuum of almost 
everything that has been the subject of controversy at the 
present session. I will not discuss it in detail, but will 
speak only of its central feature, and especially of the 
opinions which the discussion of that feature has brought 
to the surface during the present session. The majority in 
this Congress have adopted what I consider very extreme 
and dangerous opinions on certain important constitu- 
tional questions. They have not only drifted back to their 
old attitude on the subject of State sovereignty, but they 
have pushed that doctrine much further than most of 
their predecessors ever went before, except during the 
period immediately preceding the late war. 

'"' So extreme are some of these utterances, that noth- 
ing short of actual quotations from the record will do 
their authors justice. I therefore shall read several ex- 
tracts from debates at the present session of Congress, 
and group them in the order of the topics discussed. 

" Senator Wallace ('Congressional Record,' June 3d, 
pp. 3 and 5) says : 

"'The Federal Government has no voters; it can 
make none, it can constitutionally control none. . 
When it asserts the power to create and hold " national 
elections" or to regulate the conduct of the voter on elec- 
tion day, or to maintain equal suffrage, it tramples under 
foot the very basis of the Federal system, and seeks to 
build a consolidated government from a democratic re- 



582 TBE BlOORAPHf OF 

public. This is tin- plain purpose of the men now in con- 
trol of the Federal Government, and to this end the 
i, achinge of leading Republicans now are shaped. 

* & . * * * * * 

•• ■ There arc no national voters. Voters who vote for 
national representatives are qualified by State constitu- 
tions and State laws, and national citizenship is not re- 
quired of a voter of the State bv any provision of the 

Federal Constitution nor in practice. 

****** 

" ' If there he such a thing, then, as a "national elec- 
tion," it wants the first clement of an election— a national 
roter. The Federal Government', or (if it suits our friends 
on the other side better) the Nation, has no voters. It 
cannot create them, it cannot qualify them.' 

"Representative Clark, of Missouri ('Record,' April 
26th, p. 60), says : 

" ' The United States has no voters.' 

"Senator Maxey, Texas ('Record,' April 21st, p. 72), 

-,i\ - : 

"'It follows as surely as "grass grows and water 
runs" that, under our ('(institution, the entire control of 
elections must be under the State whose voters assemble; 
whose right to vote is not drawn from the Constitution of 
the United States, but existed and was freely exercised 
long before its adoption.' 

" Senator Williams, Kentucky ('Record,' April 25th, 
p. 8), Bays: 

"'The Legislatures of the States and the people of 
theseveral districts are the constituency of Senators and 
Representatives in Congress. They receive their commis- 
Bious from the Governor, and when they resiffn (which is 
vrr\ seldom) thej Bend their resignations to the Governor, 
and not to the President. They are State officers, and not 

i ral officers.' 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 535 

"Senator Whyte ('Record, 5 May 31st, p. 14) Bays : 

" 'There are no elections of United States officers and 
no voters of the United States. The voters are voters of 
the Slates, they arc the people of the States, and their 
members of the House of Representatives are chosen by 

the electors of the Status to represent the people of the 
States, whose agents they are.' 

" ' Mr. McLaxe : Do I understand him to say that 
the Government of the United States has the right to 
keep the peace anywhere within a State ? Do I under- 
stand him to say that there is any " peace of the United 
States " at all recognized by the Supreme Court of the 
United States ? 

"'Mr. Robeson: Certainly I do. — ("Record," April 
4th, p. 14,)' 

"Mr. McLane ('Record,' April 4th, p. 15) says: 

" ' I believe that the provision of law which we are 
about to repeal is unconstitutional ; that is to say, that it 
is unconstitutional for the United States to "keep the 
peace " anywhere in the States, either at the polls or else- 
where ; and if it were constitutional, 1 believe, in com- 
mon with gentlemen on this side of the House, that it 
would be highly inexpedient to exercise that power. . . . 

"'When that law used the phrase "to keep the 
peace," it could only mean the peace of the States. . . . 

" ' It is not a possible thing to have a breach of the 
United States peace at the polls.' 

"Senator Whyte ('Record,' May 21st, p. 18) says: 

"'Sovereignty is lodged with the States, where it 
had its home long before the Constitution was created. 
The Constitution is the creature of that sovereignty. 
The Federal Government lias no inherent sovereignty. 
All its sovereign powers are drawn from the States. 

" ' The States were in existence long before the Union, 
and the latter took its birth from their power. 

******* 

"'The State governments are supreme, by inherent 
20 



586 THE BTOQRAPBT OF 

power originally conceded to (lioin by the people, as to 
the control of local legislation and administration. The 
Federal Government has no part or lot in this vast mass 
of inherent sovereign power, and its interference there- 
with is utterly unwarrantable.' 



" Senator "Wallace (' Record," June 3d, pp. 3 and 4) 

-ays : 

" 'Thus we have every branch of the Federal Govern- 
ment, Bouse, Senate, the Executive and Judiciary De- 
partments, standing upon the State governments, and all 
resting finally upon the people of the States, qualified as 
voters by State Constitutions and State laws.' 

" Senator Whyte ('Record,' May 21st, p. 15) says : 

'"No, Mr. President; it was never declared that we 
were a Nation. 

* * * * * * 

" 'In the formation and adoption of the Constitution 
the States were the factors.' 

"These are the declarations of seven distinguished 
members of the present Congress. The doctrines set 
forth in the above "quotations may be fairly regarded as 
the doctrines of the Democracy as represented in this 
( lapitol. 

" Let me summarize them : First, there are no Na- 
tional elections; second, the United States has rto voters j 
third, tlu' States have the exclusive right to control all 
elections of members of Congress: fourth, the Senators 
and Representatives in Congress are State officers, or, as 

they have been called during die present session, 'ambas- 
sadors' or 'agents' of the State ; fifth, the United States 

lias no authority to keep the peace anywhere within a 
State, and. in fact, has no peace to keep; sixth, the 
United State- is not a Nation endowed with sovereign 
power, but is a confederacy of States ; seventh, the States 



JAMX8 A. GARFIELD. 

are sovereignties possessing inherent supreme powera ; 
they sure older than the Union, and as independenl sov- 
ereignties the State governments created the Onion and 
determined and limited the powers of the General Gov- 
ernment. 

" These declarations embody the sum total of the con- 
stitutional doctrines which the Democracy has avowed 
during this extra session of Congress. They form a body 
of doctrines which I do not hesitate to say are more ex- 
treme than was ever before held on this subject, except, 
perhaps, at the very crisis of secession and rebellion. 

"And they have not been put forth as abstract theo- 
ries of Government. True to 'the logic of their convic- 
tions, the majority have sought to put them in practice 
by affirmative acts of legislation. 

"Let me enumerate these attempts : First, they have 
denounced as unconstitutional all attempts of the United 
States to supervise, regulate, or protect National elec- 
tions, and have tried to repeal all laws on the National 
statute-book enacted for that purpose ; second, following 
the advice given by Calhoun in his political testament to 
his party, they have tried to repeal all those portions of 
the venerated Judiciary Act of 1789, the Act of 1833 
against nullification, the Act of 1861, and the acts amend- 
atory thereof, which provide for carrying to the Supreme 
Court of the United States all controversies that relate to 
the duties and authority of any officer acting under the 
Constitution and laws of the United States; third, they 
have attempted to prevent the President from enforcing 
the laws of the Union, by refusing necessary supplies, 
and by forbidding the use of the army to suppress vio- 
lent resistance to the laws, by which, if they had succeeded, 
they would have left the citizens and the authorities of the 
States free to obey or disobey the laws of the Union as 
they might choose. 

"This, I believe, Mr. Chairman, is a fair summary 
both of the principles and the attempted practice to which 



538 TEE BTOGHAPHT OF 

the maj irity of this Elouse has treated the country during 
the exl ra session. 

•• Before quitting this topic it is worth while to notice 
the fact thai the attempl made in one of the bills now 
pending in this House, to curtail the jurisdiction of the 
National i 'Cits, is in the direct line of the teachings of 
John ('. Calhoun. In his 'Discourse on the Constitution 
and Government of the United States.' published by au- 
thority of the Legislature of South Carolina in 1851, he 
sets forth at great length the doctrine that ours is not a 
National Government, but a confederacy of sovereign 
States, and then proceeds to point out what he considers 
the dangerous departures which the Government lias made 
from his theory of the Constitution. 

" The first and most dangerous of these departures he 
declares to be the adoption of the twenty-fifth section of 
the Judiciary Act of 1789, by which appeals were author- 
ized from the judgments of the Supreme Courts of the 
States to the Supreme Court of the United States. He 
declares that section of the act unconstitutional, because 
it makes the Supreme Court of a 'sovereign' State subor- 
dinate to the judicial power of the United States ; and he 
recommends his followers never to rest until they have re- 
pealed, not only that section, but also what, he calls the 

still more dangerous law of L833, which forbids the courts 
of the States to sit in judgment en the acts of an officer 

of the United States done in pursuance of National law. 

The presenl Congress bas won the unenviable distinction 
of- making the l'n>t attempt, since the death of Calhoun, 
to revive and put in practice his disorganizing and d^- 
atructive t beorj of government. 

•• l-'innl\ believing thai these doctrines and attempted 
practice of the present Congress arc erroneous and per* 
uicious. I will state briefly the counter-propositions : 

••I affirm: first, thai the Constitution of the Tinted 

States was n >t created by the governments of the states, 

but was ordained and established by the only sovereign in 

Country — the common superior of both the States and 



JAMES A. GABFIRLD. 589 

the Nation — the people themselves; second, that the 
United. States is a Nation, having a Governmenl whose 
powers, as defined and limited l>y the Constitution, 
operate upon all the States in their corporate capacity 

and upon all the people; third, that by its legislative, ex- 
ecutive, and judicial authority the Nation is armed with 
adequate power to enforce all the provisions of the Con- 
stitution against all opposition of individuals or of States, 
at all times and all places within the Union. 

" These are broad propositions ; and I take the few 
minutes remaining to defend them. The constitutional 
history of this country, or, rather, the history of sov- 
ereignty and government in this country, is comprised in 
four sharply defined epochs : 

"First. Prior to the 4th day of July, 1776, sov- 
ereignty, so far as it can he affirmed of this country, was 
lodged in the crown of Great Britain. Every member of 
every colony (the colonists were not citizens, but subjects) 
drew his legal rights from the crown of Great Britain. 
'Every acre of land in this country was then held 
mediately or immediately by grants from that crown,' 
and ' all the civil authority then existing or exercised 
here flowed from the. head of the British empire.' 

"Second. On the 4th day of July, 1??(J, the people of 
these colonies, asserting their natural inherent right as 
sovereigns, withdrew the sovereignty from the crown of 
Great Britain, and reserved it to themselves. In so far as 
they delegated this National authority at all they dele- 
gated it to the Continental Congress assembled at 
Philadelphia. That Congress *by general consent be- 
came the supreme Government of this country — executive, 
judicial, and legislative in one. During the whole of its 
existence it wielded the supreme power of the new Nation. 

" Third. On the 1st day of March, 1781, the same 
sovereign power, the people, withdrew the authority fr< m 
the Continental Congress, and lodged it, so far as they 
lodged it at all, with the Confederation, which, though a 
league of States, was declared to be a perpetual Union. 



540 IRE BIOGRAPBT OF 

"Fourth. When at last our fathers found the Con- 
federation too weak and inefficient for the purposes of a 
great nation, they abolished it, and lodged the national 
authority, enlarged and strengthened by new powers, in 
the Constitution of the United State-, where, in spite of 
all assaults, it still remains. All these great act- were 
done by the only sovereign in this Republic, the people 

theii.- 

•• That no one may charge that I pervert history to 
sustain my own theories. I call attention to the fact that 
not one of the colonies declared itself free and indepen- 
dent. Neither Virginia nor Massachusetts threw off its 
allegiance to the British crown as a colony. The great 
declaration was made not even by all the colonies as colo- 
nies, but it was made in the name and by authority of 
'all the good people of the colonies' as one people. 

" Let me fortify this position by a great name that 
will shine for ever in the constellation of our Southern 
sky — the name of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South 
Carolina. He was a leading member of the Constitutional 
Convention of L787, and also a member of the Convention 
of South Carolina which ratified the Constitution. In 
this latter Convention the doctrine of State sovereignty 
found a few champions ; and their attempt to prevenl the 
adoption of tie' Constitution, because it established a 
Bupreme National Government, was rebuked by him in 
these memorable words. I quote from his Bpeech as re- 
corded in Elliott's • Debat< - 

•• -This admirable manifesto, which, for importance of 
matter and elegance of composition, stands unrivaled, 
sufficiently confutes the honorable gentleman's doctrine 
of the individual sovereignty and independence of the 
several State-. In that declaration the several State- are 
imt even enumerated, hut after reciting, in nervous lan- 
•. and with convincing arguments, our right to in- 
dependence, and the tyranny which compelled nstoas eri 
it, the declaration is made in the following word- : " We 

therefore, the rei • of the United states of 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 541 

America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the 

Supreme Judge of the world fur the rectitude of our in- 
tentions, do in the name, and by the authority of the 
good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and de- 
clare that these united colonies are, and of right ought U) 
be, free and independent States." 

" ' The separate independence and individual sover- 
eignty of the several States were never thought of by the 
enlightened band of patriots who framed this declaration. 
The several States are not even mentioned by name in 
any part of it, as if it was intended to impress this maxim 
on America, that our freedom and independence arose 
from our union, and that without it we could neither be 
free nor independent. Let us, then, consider all attempts 
to weaken this union b) r maintaining that each is separ- 
ately and individually independent as a species of politi- 
cal heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on 
us the most serious distresses.' 

''For a further and equally powerful vindication of 
the same view, I refer to the ' Commentaries ' of Justice 
Story, vol. 1, p. 197. 

" In this same connection, and as a pertinent and 
effective response to the Democratic doctrines under re- 
view, I quote from the first Annual Message of Abraham 
Lincoln, than whom no man of our generation studied 
the origin of the Union more profoundly. He said : 

" 'Our States have neither more nor less power than 
that reserved to them in the Union by the Constitution, 
no one of them ever having been a State out of the Union. 
The original ones passed into the Union even before they 
cast off their British colonial dependence, and the new 
ones each came into the Union directly from a condition 
of dependence, excepting Texas. And even Texas, in its 
temporary independence, was never designated a State 
The new ones only took the designation of States on com- 
ing into the Union, while that name was first adopted for 
the old ones by the Declaration of Independence. Therein 
the * ; united colonies" were declared to be " free and in- 
dependent States;" but, even then, the object plainly 
was not to declare their independence of one an 



542 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

of the Union, but directly the contrary, as their mutual 
pledge and their mutual action before, at the time, and 
aft< rward abundantly show. . . . 

••'The States have their status in the Union, and 
they have do other Legal status. [f they break Erom this, 
they can only do bo againsl law and by revolution. The 
Union, ami not themselves separately, procured their in- 
dependence and their liberty. By conquesl or purchase, 
the Union gave each of them whatever of independence 
and liberty it has. The Union is older than any of the 
States, and in fact it created them as States. Originally 
some dependent colonies made the Union, and in turn the 
Union threw oil' their old dependence for them and made 
them Slates, such as they are. Not one of them ever 
had a State Constitution independent of the Union. Of 
course it is not forgotten that all the new Slates framed 
their Constitutions before they entered the Union ; never- 
theless dependent upon and preparatory to coming into 
the Union.' 

" In further enforcement of the doctrine that the State 
Governments were not the sovereigns who created this 
Government, I refer to the great decision of the Supreme 
Court of the United States in the case of Ohisholm v. 
The State of Georgia, reported in 2 Dallas, a decision 
replete with the mosl enlightened national spirit, in which 
the Court stamps with its indignant condemnation the 
notion that the Stale of Georgia was 'sovereign' in any 
Bense that made it independent of or superior to the 
Nation : 

•• Mr. Justice Wilson said : 

•• • Aj a judge of this Court I know, and can decide 
upon the knowledge, that the citizens of Georgia, when 
they acted upon the large Bcale of the Union as a pan of 

the ••people of the liiited St at 68," did not surrender the 

suprem 'sovereign power to thai State; but, as to the 

purposes of the Union, retained it to themselves. A> to 
the purposes of the Union, therefore, Georgia is not ;i 

Bovereigu State 

" • \\ boever oonsiders in a combined and comprehen- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 543 

sive view the general texture of the Constitution will he 
satisfied that the people of the United States intended to 
form themselves into a nation for national purposes. 
They instituted for such purposes a National Govern- 
ment, complete in all its parts, with powers legislative, 
executive, and judiciary, and in all those powers extending 
over the whole nation. Is it congruous that, with regard 
to such purposes, any man or body of men, any person, 
natural or artificial, should he permitted to claim success- 
fully an entire exemption from the jurisdiction of the 
National Government ?' 

" Mr. Chairman, the dogma of State sovereignty, which 
has re-awakened to such vigorous life in this chamber, 
has borne such bitter fruits and entailed such suffering 
upon our people that it deserves more particular notice. 
It should be noticed that the word 'sovereignty' cannot, 
be fitly applied to any government in this country. It is 
not found in our Constitution. It is a feudal word, born 
of the despotism of the Middle Ages, and was unknown 
even in imperial Rome. A •sovereign' is a person, a 
prince, who has subjects that owe him allegiance. There 
is no one paramount sovereign in the United States. 
There is no person here who holds any title or authority 
whatever, except the official authority given him by law. 
Americans are not subjects, but citizens. Our only sov- 
ereign is the whole people. To talk about the 'inherent 
sovereignty ' of a corporation — an artificial person — is to 
talk nonsense; and we ought to reform our habit of speech 
on that subject. 

"But what do gentlemen mean when they tell us that 
a State is sovereign ? What does sovereignty mean in its 
accepted use, but a political corporation having no 
superior ? Is a State of this Union such a corporation ? 
Let us test it by a few examples drawn from the Constitu- 
tion. No State of this Union can make war or conclude 
a peace. Without the consent of Congress it cannot raise 
or support an army or a navy. It cannot make a tret ty 
with a foreign power, nor enter into any agreement or 
compact with another State. It cannot levy impo-- 



Mi THE BIOGRAPHY OF ' 

duties on imports or exports. It cannot coin money. It 
cannot regulate commerce. It cannot authorize a single 
ship to go into commission anywhere on the high seas ; if 
it should, that ship would be seized as a pirate, or confis- 
cated by the laws of the United States. A State cannot 
emit bills of credit. It can enact no law which makes 
anything hut gold and silver a legal tender. It has no 
ELag except the Hag of the Union. And there are many 
other subjects on which the States are forbidden by the 
Constitution to legislate. 

" How much inherent sovereignty is left in a corpo- 
ration which is thus shorn of all these great attributes of 
sovereignty ? 

"But this is not all. The Supreme Court of the 
United States may declare null and void any law or any 
clause of the Constitution of a State which happens to he 
in coiitlict with the Constitution and laws of the United 
States. Again, the States appear as plaintiffs and defend- 
ants before the Supreme Court of the United States. 
They may sue each other ; and. until the Eleventh Amend- 
ment was adopted, a citizen might sue a State. These 
' sovereigns ' may all be summoned before their common 
superior to be judged. And yet they are endowed with 
supreme inherent sovereignty ! 

•• A.gain, the government of a State may be absolutely 
abolished by Congress, in case it is not republican ill 
form. And finally, to cap the climax of this absurd pre- 
tension, every right possessed by one of these 'sovereign ' 
Stai.-. every inherent sovereign right, except the single 

right In equal representation in the Senate, may he taken 
away, without its consent, bj the vote of two-thirds of 
Congress and three-fourths of the states. But, in spite 
of all these disabilities, we hear them paraded as inde- 
pendent, sovereign states, the creators of the Union and 
the dictators of its powers. Eow inherently ' sovereign ' 
must be thai State west of the Mississippi which the 
Nation bouglil and paid for with the public money, and 
permitted to come into the Union a half century after the 






JAMES A. GARFIELD. 545 

Constitution was adopted ! And yet we arc told thai the 
States are inherently sovereign and created the National 
Government. 

" Read a long line of luminous decisions of the Su- 
preme Court. Take the life of Chief-Justice Marshall, 
that great judge, who found the Constitution paper and 
made it a power, who found it a skeleton and clothed it 
with ilesh and blood. By his wisdom and genius lie made 
it the potent and beneficent instrument lor the govern- 
ment of a great nation. Everywhere he repelled the in- 
sidious and dangerous heresy of the sovereignty of the 
States in the sense in which it has been used in these de- 
bates. 

" Half a century ago this heresy threatened the sta- 
bility of the Nation. The eloquence of Webster and his 
compeers and the patriotism and high courage of Andrew 
Jackson resisted and for a time destroyed its power ; 
but it continued to live as the evil genius, the incarnate 
devil, of America; and in 1861 it was the fatal phantom that 
lured eleven millions of our people into rebellion against 
their Government. Hundreds of thousands of those who 
took up arms against the Union stubbornly resisted all 
inducements to that fatal step until they were summoned 
by the authority of their States. 

" The dogma of State sovereignty in alliance with 
chattel slavery finally made its appeal to that court of last 
resort where the laws are silent, and where kings and 
nations appear in arms for judgment. In that awful 
court of war two questions were tried : Shall slavery live? 
And is a State so sovereign that it may nullify the laws 
and dctroy the Union ? Those two questions were tried 
on the thousand battle-fields of the war ; and if war ever 
' legislates,' as a leading Democrat of Ohio once wisely 
affirmed, then our war legislated finally upon those sub- 
jects, and determined, beyond all controversy, that slavery 
should never again live in this Ecpublic, and that there is 
not sovereignty enough in any State to authorize its people 
either to detroy the Union or nullify its laws. 



r,46 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

"I am unwilling to believe that any considerable num- 
ber of Americans will ever again push that doctrine to 
the same extreme; and yet, in then' summer months of 

1879, in the Congress of the reunited Nation, we find 
the majority drifting fast and far in the wrong direction, 
by reasserting much of that doctrine which the war ought 
to have settled for ever. And what is more lamentable, 
each declarations as those which I read at the outset are 
finding their echoes in many portions of the country 
which were lately the theatre of war. JSo one can read 
the proceedings at certain recent celebrations, without ob- 
serving the growing determination to assert thai the men 
who fought against the Union were not engaged in 
treasonable conspiracy against the Nation, but that they 
did right to fight for their States, and that, in the long 
run, the lost cause will be victorious. These indications 
arc filling the people with anxiety and indignation ; and 
they are beginning to inquire whether the war has really 
settled these great questions. 

" I remind gentlemen on the other side that we have 
not ounelves revived these issues. We had hoped they 
were settled beyond recall, and that peace and friendship 
might be fully restored to our people. 

" Bui the truth requires me to say that there is one 
indispensable -round of agreement on which alone we can 
stand together, and it is this : The war for the Union was 
right, everlastingly right ; and the war againsl the Union 
wrong, for ever wrong. However honest and sincere in- 
dividuals may have been, the secession was Done the less 
rebellion and treason. We defend the States in the exer- 
cise of their many and important rights, and we defend 

with equal zeal the rights of the United States. The 
right- and authority of both were received from the people 
— the only source of inherent power. 

"We insist not oni\ thai, this is a Nation, but that 
the power of the Government within its own prescribed 

sphere, operates directly upon the States and upon all the 

. de. We insist that our laws shall be construed by our 



JAMES A. OABFIELD. 549 

own courts and enforced by our Executive. Any theory 
which is inconsistent with this doctrine we will resisl to 
the end. 

'.' Applying these reflections to the subject of national 
elections embraced in this bill 1 remind gentlemen that this 
is a National House of Representatives. The people oi 
my Congressional district have a right to know that a 
man elected in New York city is elected honestly and law- 
fully ; for he joins in making laws for forty-five million- of 
people. Every citizen of the United States has an interest 
and a right in every election within the republic where 
national representatives are chosen. We insist that these 
laws relating to our national elections shall be enforced, 
not nullified ; shall remain on the statute-books, and not 
be repealed ; and that the just and legal supervision of 
these elections ought never again to be surrendered by 
the Government of the United States. By our consent it 
never shall be surrendered. 

" Now, Mr. Chairman, this bill is about to be launched 
upon its stormy passage. It goes not into unknown 
waters; for its fellows have been wrecked in the same 
sea. Its short, disastrous, and, I may add, ignoble voyage 
is likely to be straight to the bottom." 

I here close the record of General Garfield's career in 
Congress. At the October elections in L879, the Repub- 
licans in Ohio had a decided majority of votes in that 
State, and in December following the State Legislature 
chose General Garfield to fill the seat of Mr. Thurman in 
the Senate of the United States, his term to begin on 
March 4, 1861 . 

On that day, as Ave shall observe presently. General 
Garfield took a more exalted seat, to which the voice of the 
nation had called him. 



5.30 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER XXII. 

REPTTBLIOAJS NATIONAL I H <.\ V 1..N I K >.\, JUNE '2, 1881. 

On "Wednesday, June 2, L880, the Republican Na- 
tional Convciitii.ii assembled at Chicago for the purpose 
of nominating a candidate for the presidency of the United 
States. The Convention was held in the immense hall of 
the Exposition building. It contained, with the galleries, 
seating places for ten or eleven thousand persons. The 
hour fixed for the meeting was at meridian, at which time 
delegates and spectators, in great crowds, swarmed into 
the large room. 

There were present, at an early moment, three dis- 
tinguished Republican Leaders who were supposed t<> 
wield an immense influence in their respective State.-. 
The-c were Conkling, of New York; Cameron, of Penn- 
sylvania, and Logan, of Illinois. These three were com- 
bined in favor of the nomination of General Grant, who 
had already occupied the Presidential chair during two 
terms. 

Cn opposition to these were the respective friends of 
Messrs. Blaine, Edmunds, E. B. Washburn, Windom and 
John Sherman. The latter was then the Secretary of the 
iiry, who had Labored most efficiently in accomplish- 
ing the resumption of specie payment. All these men 
had been Bpoken of as worthy of the Presidential chair. 
The Ohio delegation were in favor of Sherman as the 
nominee. At the bead of the delegation was General 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 58.1 

Garfield. When he entered the Convention al the head 
of his delegation, he was greeted with enthusiastic plaud- 
its from the members arid spectators. 

At a little after one o'clock, Senator Cameron stepped 
to the front of the platform and announced that the Con- 
vention would be opened with prayer. It was done, when 
Mr. Keogh, Secretary of the National Republican Com- 
mittee, read the call. Senator Cameron then made a 
speech of about two minutes' duration, in which he uttered 
some telling sentences m favor of the nomination of Gen- 
eral Grant, and at the close nominated George F. Hoai 
of Massachusetts, as temporary chairman. lie was after- 
wards chosen President of the Convention. 

The business of the Convention was opened by Eugene 
Hale, of Maine (a friend of Mr. Blaine), who offered the 
usual resolutions for a call of States to report Committee- 
men, and very little more was done in the Convention 
that day. It convened at L 1 o'clock the next day (June 
3), which was spent chieiiy in what might be termed pre- 
liminary skirmishing before the great battle. That skir- 
mishing was chiefly between Roseoe Colliding of New 
York, the champion of General Grant, and Messrs. Hale 
and Frye of Maine, the champions of Senator Blaine. 
This was while the Committee on Rules, of which Gen- 
eral Garfield was chairman, were engaged in their duties. 
On the third day of the session Mr. Colliding offered 
a resolution declaring that all delegates should be bound 
to give a cordial support to the nominees of the Conven- 
tion. He felt sure of the nomination of Grant, and this 
resolution was intended to secure possible bolters. When 
the vote was taken some voted ••no/* when Conkling, 



553 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

considering that vote as not in accordance with strict par- 
ty discipline, offered the following resolution: 

'• Resolved, Thai the delegates who Lave voted that 
they will not abide the action of the Convention do not 
deserve to have seats, and have forfeited their votes in (ho 
i 'onvention."' 

This was received with both applause and disapproba- 
tion, and Mr. Conkling, perceiving that it was distasteful 
to many members of the Convention, withdrew the reso- 
lution. The Associated Press report of the affair said : 

•• Mr. McCormick, of West Virginia, avowed himself 
one of the three dissenters, not because he did not expect 
to support the nominee of this Convention, for he did 
intend to do that, no matter who he should be. He was 
as good a Republican as the gentleman from New York, 
and whereas the latter made oniy one speech for the 
nominee of the lasl National Republican Convention [Mr. 
Hayes], he [McCormick] made one hundred. [Great 
applause and cheers.] Ee opposed the resolution only 
because it declares thai nun are not fit to sit in the Con- 
vention if they differ from other members of it. 

'• Mr. Garfield, of Ohio, who was received with a most 
flattering ovation, expressed his fear thai the convention 
w.i- aboul to commit a grave error. He would state the 
case. Every delegate save three had voted for a resolu- 
tion, and the three who had voted againsi it had risen in 
their places and stated they expected and intended to 
support the nominee of the convention. But it was not, 
in their judgment, a wise thing al this time to pass the 
resolution winch all the rest of the delegates had voted 
for. .\ re they to be disfranchised because they thoughi 
jo? [dies of "No! No !"J That was the question. 
Wob every delegate to have his Republicanism inquired 
in i) before he was allowed to vote P Delegates were re- 



JAMES A. Ml FIELD. 

sponsible for their votes, not to the convention, hut to 
their constituents. He himself would never, in any con- 
tention, vote against his judgment. He regretted that 
the gentlemen from West Virginja had thought it host to 
break the harmony of the convention by their dissent. 
lie did not know those gentlemen, nor their affiliations, 
nor their relations to the candidates. If this convention 
expelled these men, then the convention would have to 
purge itself at the end of every vote and inquire how 
many delegates avIio had voted "no" should go out. lie 
trusted that the gentleman from New York would with- 
draw his resolution and let the convention proceed with 
its business. [Loud cheering.]" 

There were many contested seats, and this condition 
gave rise to long debates. The Convention did not enter 
upon their most important duties, namely: adopting a 
platform and nominating a candidate, until the fourth day 
of the session, when on motion of General Garfield, the 
Committee on Resolutions were ordered to report. They 
submitted the following as the National Platform of the 
Republican party : 

" The Republican party, in National Convention as- 
sembled, at the end of twenty years since the Federal 
Government was first committed to its charge, submits to 
the people of the United States this brief report of its 
administration. 

"It suppressed a rebellion which had armed nearly a 
million of men to subvert the National authority. It re- 
constructed the Union of the States, with freedom in- 
stead of slavery as its corner-stone. It transformed four 
million human beings from the likeness of things to the 
rank of citizens. It relieved Congress from the Infamous 
work of hunting fugitive slaves, and charged il 
that slavery does not exist. It has raised the value of 



554 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

<>ur paper currency from thirty-eight per cent, to the par 
of gold. It has restored upon a .solid basis payment in 
coin for all the National obligations, and has given us a 
currency absolutely good and equal in every part of our 
extended country. It has lifted the credit of the Nation 
from the point where six per cent, bonds sold at eighty-six 
to that where four per cent, bonds are eagerly sought at 
a premium. 

"Under its administration railways have increased, 
from 31,000 miles, in 1860, to more than 82,000 miles, in 
1879. Our foreign trade lias increased from $700,000,000 
to $1,500,000,000 in the same time, and our exports, 
which were £20,000,000 less than our imports in 18G0, 
were 8264,000,000 more than our imports in 1879. 

" Without resorting to loans, it has, since the war 
closed, defrayed the ordinary expenses of Government, 
besides the accruing interest on the public debt, and has 
annually disbursed more than $30,000,000 for soldiers' 
pensions. It has paid $888,000,000 of the public debt, 
and by refunding the balance at lower rates has reduced 
the annual interest charge from nearly 8151,000,000 to 
less than $89, 000,000. All the industries of the country 
have revived ; lahor is in demand ; wages have increased, 
and throughout, the entire country there is evidence of a 
coming prosperity greater than we have ever enjoyed. 

"Upon this record the Republican party asks for the 
continued confidence and support of the people, and this 
Convention submits for their approval the following state- 
men! of the principles and purposes which will continue 
to guide and inspire its efforts : 

••I. We affirm that the work of the Last twenty-one 
years has been such as to commend itself to the favor of 
the Nation, ami thai the fruits of the costly \ietories 
which we have achieved through immense difficulties 

should be preserved j that the peace regained Bhould be 
cherished; that the dissevered Union, now happily re- 
stored, should be perpetuated ; and that the Liberties se- 
cured to this generation should he transmitted nndimin- 



JAMEB A. GAIlFlKl.h. 555 

islicd to future generations ; that the order established 
mid the credit acquired should never be impaired; that 
the pensions promised should he extinguished by the full 
payment of every dollar thereof ; that the reviving in- 
dustries should be further promoted, and that the com- 
merce already so great should he steadily encouraged. 

"II. The Constitution of the United States is a su- 
preme law and not a mere contract. Out of confederated 
States is made a sovereign Nation. Some powers are de- 
nied to the Nation, while others are denied to the States ; 
hut the boundary between the powers delegated and those 
reserved is to be determined by the National, and not by 
the State tribunals. 

" III. The work of popular education is one left to 
the care of the several States, but it is the duty of the 
National Government to aid that work to the extent of its 
constitutional power. The intelligence of the Nation is 
but the aggregate of the intelligenee in the several States, 
and the destiny of the Nation must not be guided by the 
genius of any one State, but by the average genius of all. 

"IV. The Constitution wisely forbids Congress to 
make any law respecting an establishment of religion, but 
it is idle to hope that the Nation can be protected against 
the influence of sectarianism while each State is exposed 
to its domination. "We, therefore, recommend that the 
Constitution be so amended as to lay the same prohibition 
upon the Legislature of each State, and to forbid the ap- 
propriation of public funds to the support of sectarian 
schools. 

••V. We affirm the belief, avowed in 1876, thai the 
duties levied for the purpose of revenue should so dis- 
criminate as to favor American labor; that no further 
grant of the public domain should be made to any railway 
or other corporation ; that slavery having perished in the 
States, its twin barbarity, polygamy, must die in the Ter- 
ritories ; that everywhere the protection accorded t" 
zens of American birth must be secured to citizens by 
A .nierican adoption : and that we esteem it the duty of 



GOG THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Congress to develop and improve our water-courses and 
harbors, bul insist thai farther subsidies to private per- 
sons or corporations must cease. That the obligations of 
the Republic to the men who preserved its integrity in 
the hour of battle are undiminished bj the lapse of the 
6f teen years since their final victory. To do them per- 
petual honor is, and shall forever be, the grateful privi- 
lege and sacred duty of the American people. 

• VI. Since the authority to regulate immigration and 
intercourse between the United States and foreign na- 
tions rests with Congress, or with the United States and 
its treaty-making power, the Republican party, regarding 
the unrestricted immigration of the Chinese as an evil of 
great magnitude, invoke.- the exercise of those powers to 
restrain and limit that immigration by the enactment of 
such just, humane, and reasonable provisions as will pro- 
duce that result. 

"VII. That the purity and patriotism which char- 
acterized the earlier career of Rutherford B. Hayes, in 
peace and war, and which guided the thoughts of our im- 
mediate predecessors to him for a Presidential candidate, 
have continued to inspire him in his career as Chief Exec- 
utive, and that tlistory will accord to his administration 
the honors which are due to an efficient, just, and cour- 
discharge of the public business, and will honor his 
interpositions between the people and proposed partisan 

laws. 

"VIII. We charge upon the Democratic party the 
habitual sacrifice of patriotism and justice to a supreme 
and insatiable lust of office and patronage ; that to obtain 
jsion of the .National and State Governments, and 
the control of place and position, they have obstructed all 
efforts to promote the puritj and to conserve the freedom 
of suffrage, and have devised fraudulent certifications and 
returns; have labored to unseal lawfully elected members 
of Congress, to secure at all hazard the vote of a majority 
of the tStatee in the House of Representatives; have en- 

ired I" OCCUpy, by force and fraud, the places of 



JAMES A. GARFIELD 

trust given to others by the people of Maine and rescued 
by the courageous actios of Maine's patriotic .-ens ; have 
by methods vicious in principle and tyrannical in pracl ice, 
attached partisan legislation to -appropriation billB, upon 
whose passage the very movement of the Government de- 
pends; have crushed the rights of individuals-; have ad- 
vocated the principles and sought the favor of rebellion 
against the Nation, mill have endeavored to obliterate the 
sacred memories of the war, and to overcome its inestima- 
bly valuable results of nationality, personal freedom, and 
individual equality. 

" The Republican party, adhering to the principles 
affirmed by its last National Convention, of respect for 
the constitutional rules governing appointment to office, 
adopts the declaration of President Hayes, that the reform 
in the civil service shall be thorough, radical, and com- 
plete. To that end it demands the cooperation of the 
Legislative with the Executive Departments of the Gov- 
ernment, and that Congress shall so legislate that fitness, 
ascertained by proper practical tests, shall admit to the 
public service ; that the tenure of administrative offices 
(except those through which the distinctive policy of the 
party in power shall be carried out), sh%ll be made per- 
manent during good behavior, and that the power of re- 
moval for cause, with due responsibility for the good 
conduct of subordinates, shall accompany the power of 
appointment. 

"The equal, steady, and complete enforcement of 
laws, and the protection of all our citizens in the enjoy- 
ment of all privileges and immunities guaranteed by bhe 
Constitution, are the first duties of the Nation. The 
dangers of a solid South can only be averted by a faithful 
performance of every promise which the Nation has made 
to the citizen. The execution of the laws and the pun- 
ishment of all those who violate them are the only safe 
methods by which an enduring peace can be secured, and 
genuine prosperity established throughout the South. 
Whatever promises the Nation makes the Nation must 



558 HI!-: BIOORAPMf OF 

perform, and the Nation cannot, with safety, relegate 
this duty to the States. The Bolid South must be divided 
by the peaceful agencies of the ballot, and all opinions 
musl there 6nd free expression, and to this end the hon- 
est voter must be protected againsl terrorism, violence, or 
fraud. And we affirm it to be the duty and the purpose 
of the Republican party to use every legitimate means to 
restore all the States of this Union to the most perfect 
harmony that may be practicable ; and we submit it to 
the practical, sensible people of the United States to say 
whether it would not be dangerous to the dearest interesl 
of our country at this time to surrender the administra- 
tion of the National (iovernment to the party which seeks 
to overthrow the existing policy under which we air so 
prosperous, and thus bring distrust and confusion where 
there are now order, confidence and hope.'' 

To these resolutions another concerning reforms in 
the Civil Service was adopted. It is as follows : 

"The Republican party, adhering to the principles 
affirmed by its last National Convention of respectfor the 
Constitutional rules governing appointment to office, 
adopts the declaration of Presidenl Haws that the reform 
in the civil service shall be thorough, radical and com- 
plete. To that end it demands the co-operation of tin' 
Legislature with the Executive Departments of thi Gov- 

emment, and that Congress shall SO legislate that fitness, 
ascertained by proper practical tests, shall admit to the 
public service. "' 

At the evening session of the fourth day, the most 
important and interesting work of the Convention was be- 
gun. Eugene Halo arose and moved a call of States for 
the purpose of placing the various candidates in nomina- 
tion. Ten minutes ire allowed for each nomination, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

and live minutes to the seconder. When the roll was 
called there was no response until Michigan was reached, 
when James F. Joy, a delegate from that State, after a 
brief speech, nominated James G. Blaine of Maine, for 
President of the United States. The nomination was sec- 
onded by Mr. Pixley of California. 

When Minnesota was called, E. F. Drake presented 
the name of William Windom. The nomination was not 
seconded. Mr. Conkling arose, when New York was 
called, and made an eloquent speech of considerable length 
in commendation of his favorite candidate for the Presi- 
dency. He was frequently interrupted. At the close of 
his remarks, Mr. Conkling nominated General Grant for 
the Presidency. It was seconded by Mr. Bradley of Ken- 
tucky. An eye witness wrote : 

" The Grant men in Convention and galleries took 
a regular jubilee, and President Hoar had to sit down 
and let disorder tire itself out. The Grant delegation 
'pooled' the flags which marked their seats, marched 
round the aisles, and cheered and yelled as if they were 
dwellers in Bedlam, just home after a long absence." 

When Ohio was called, General Garfield arose and, in 
the " midst of tremendous cheering," advanced to the place 
Mr. Conkling had just vacated. When order was restored, 
he spoke as follows : 

"Mr. President : I have witnessed the extraordinary 
scenes of this Convention with deep solicitude. No emo- 
tion touches my heart more quickly than a sentiment m 
honor of a great and noble character. But, as I Bal "ti 
these seats and witnessed these demonstrations, it seemed 
to me you were a human ocean in a tempest. I have Been 



560 TEE BIOQRAPBY OF 

the sea lashed Into fury and tossed into a Bpray, and its 
grandeur moves the soul of the dulleBl man. Bui I re- 
member that ii is not fcne billows, bul the calm level of the 
3< ;i. from \\ bich all heights and depthsare measured. When 
the Btorm has passed and the hour of calm .settles on the 
m, when sunshine bathes its smooth Burface, then the 
astronomer and surveyor takes the level from which he 
measures all terrestrial heights and depths. Gentlemen 
of the Convention, your present temper may not mark the 
healthful pulse of the people. 

'• When our enthusiasm has passed, when the emotions 
of this hour have subsided, we shall find the calm level of 
public opinion below the storm, from which the thoughts 
of a might v people are to be measured, and by which their 
final action will be determined. Not here, in this brilliant 
circle, where 15,000 men and women are assembled, is the 
destiny of the Republic to be decreed ; not here, where I see 
the enthusiastic faces of 756 delegates waiting to cast their 
votes into the urn and determine the choice of their party, 
but by 5,000,000 Republican firesides, where the thought- 
ful fathers, with wives and children about them, with the 
calm thoughts inspired by love of home and love of coun- 
try, with the history of the past, the hopes of the future, 
and the know ledge of the great men who have adorned 
and blessed our Nation in days gone by — there God pre- 
pares the verdict that shall determine the wisdom of our 
work to-night. Xot in Chicago, in the heat of dune, but 
in the sober quiet that conies between now and November. 

in the silence of deliberate judgment, will this great 
question be Bettled. Let us aid them to-night. 

"Bul now. gentlemen of the Convention, whatdowe 

want ? Bear with me a moment. Hear me for this cause, 
and for a moment be silent, that you may hear. Twenty- 
ii\e years ago this Republic was wearing a triple chain of 
bondage. Long familiarity with the traffio in the body 
and Bonis of men had paralyzed the consciences of a ma- 
jority of our people. The baleful doctrine of State sovr 

ereignty had shocked and weakened the noblest and most 




<PFESIQEJTT fiETHUE fiJ^Q <±HE CjlglJJET 
VIEWING <1HE JREJtfjlIJIS IJT THE B0<1UJJ(X)J1 
OF THE QJKPITOL. 



JAMES A. OARFIKLTi. 563 

beneficent powers of the National Government, and the 
grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin Terri- 
tories of the West and dragging them mto the den of 
eternal bondage. At that crisis the Republican party was 
born. It drew its first inspiration from the fire of liberty 
which God has lighted in every man's heart, and which 
all the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never wholly 
extinguish. The Republican party came to deliver and 
save the Republic. It entered the arena when the be- 
leaguered and assailed Territories were struggling for 
freedom, and drew around them the sacred circle of lib- 
erty, which the demon of slavery has never dared to 
cross. It made them free forever. 

" Strengthened by its victory on the frontier, the 
young party, under the leadership of that great man who 
on this spot, twenty years ago, was made its leader, en- 
tered the National Capital and assumed the high duties 
of the Government. The light which shone from its 
banner dispelled the darkness in which slavery had en- 
shrouded the capital, and melted the shackles of every 
slave, and consumed in the fire of liberty every slave-pen 
within the shadow of the Capitol. Our national industries, 
by an impoverishing policy, were themselves prostrated, 
and the streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents 
that the treasury itself was well-nigh empty. The money 
of the people was the wretched notes of two thousand 
uncontrolled and irresponsible State banking corpora- 
tions, which were filling the country with a circulation 
that poisoned rather than sustained the life of business. 

" The Republican party changed all this. It abolished 
the babel of confusion, and gave the country a currency 
as national as its flag, based upon the sacred faith of the 
people. It threw its protecting arm around our great in- 
dustries, and they stood erect as with new life. It filled 
with the spirit of true nationality all the great functions 
of the government. It confronted a rebellion of un- 
exampled magnitude, with slavery behind it. and. under 
God, fought the final battle of liberty until victory was 
21 



564 TBS BIOGRAPHY OF 

won. Then, after the storms of battle, were heard the 
sweet, calm words of peace uttered by the unconquering 
nation, and saving to the conquered foe that lay prostrate 
at its feet : ' This is our only revenge, that you join us 
in lifting to the serene firmament of the Constitution, 
to shine like stars forever and ever, the immortal princi- 
ples of truth and justice, that all men, white or black, 
shall be free and stand equal before the laws.' 

" Then came the question of reconstruction, the public 
debt and the public faith. 

"In the settlement of these questions the Republican 
party has completed its twenty-five years of glorious ex- 
istence, and it has sent us here to prepare it for another 
lustrum of duty and of victory. How shall we do this 
great work ? We cannot do it, my friends, by assailing 
our Republican brethren. God forbid that I should say 
one word to cast a shadow upon any name on the roll of 
our heroes. This coming fight is our Thermopylae. We 
are standing upon a narrow isthmus. If our Spartan 
hosts are united we can withstand all the Persians that 
the Xerxes of Democracy can bring against us. 

" Let us hold our ground this one year, for the stars 
in their courses fight for us in the future. The census to 
be taken this year will bring re-enforcements and con- 
tinued power. But, in order to win this victory now, we 
want the vote of every Republican, of every Grant Re- 
publican in America, of every Blaine man and every anti- 
Blaine man. The vote of every follower of every candi- 
date is needed to make our success certain ; therefore I 
say, gentlemen and brethren, we arc here to calmly counsel 
together, and inquire what we shall do. [A voice, ' Nomi- 
nate < !ai -field.'- -Greal applause. | 

" We wanl a man whose life and opinions embody all 
the achievements of which I have spoken. We want a 
man who, standing on a mountain height, sees all the 
achievements of >>n\- pasi history, and carries in his heart 
the memory of all it- glorious deeds, and who, looking 
forward, prepares to meet the labor and the dangers to 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

come. Wc want one who will act in no Bpirit of nnkind- 
ness toward those we lately met in battle. The Republi- 
can party offers to onr brethren of the South the olive 
branch of peace, and wishes them to return to brother- 
hood, on this supreme condition that it shall be admit led 
forever and forever more, that, in the war for the Union, 
we were right and they were wrong. On that supreme 
condition we meet them as brethren, and no other. We 
ask them to share with us the blessings and honors of 
this great Republic. 

" Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to 
present a name for your consideration — the name of a man 
who was the comrade, and associate, and friend of nearly 
all those noble dead whose faces look down upon us from 
these walls to-night ; a man who began his career of public 
service twenty-five years ago ; whose first duty was cour- 
ageously done in the days of peril on the plains of Kansas, 
when the first red drops of that bloody shower began to 
fall which finally swelled into the deluge of war. He 
bravely stocd by young Kansas then, and, returning to 
his duty in the National Legislature, through all subse- 
quent time his pathway has been marked by labors per- 
formed in every department of legislation. 

" You ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty- 
five years of the national statutes. Not one great benefi- 
cent statute has been placed on our statute books without 
his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided these men to 
formulate the laws that raised our great armies ami 
carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the 
workmanship of those statutes that restored and brought 
back the unity and calm of the States. His hand was in 
all that great legislation that created the war currency, 
and in a greater work that redeemed the promises of the 
Government, and made the currency equal to gold. And 
when, at last, called from the halls of legislation into a 
high executive office, he displayed that experience, intel- 
ligence, firmness, and poise of character' which has carried 
us through a stormy period of three years, with one half 



Sfifl THE BTOGRAPHY OF 

the public press crying 'Crucify him !' and a hostile Con- 
gress seeking to prevent success — in all this he remained 
unmoved until victory crowned him. 

"The great fiscal affairs of the nation and the great 
business interests of the country he has guarded and pre- 
served, while executing the law of resumption, and effect- 
ing its object, without a jar, and against the false prophe- 
cies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy of this 
continent. He has shown himself able to meet with calm- 
ness the great emergencies of the Government for twenty- 
five years. He has trodden the perilous heights of public 
duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his 
breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of "that 
fierce light that beats against the throne," but its fiercest 
ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. 

" I do not present him as a better Republican, or as a 
better man than thousands of others we honor, but I pre- 
sent him for your deliberate consideration. I nominate 
John Sherman, of Ohio." 

The nomination of Mr. Sherman was seconded by Mr. 
"Winkler of Wisconsin, and Eliott (colored) of South Caro- 
lina. Then Mr. Hillings of Vermont, nominated Senator 
George F. Edmunds of that State. It was seconded by 
Mr. Stanford of Massachusetts. This nomination was fol- 
lowed by that of E. B. Washburne of Illinois, by Mr. 
Cassidy of Wisconsin, seconded by Mr. Bandagee of Con- 
necticut. The nominees being now all named, and the 
time being only a few minutes before Sunday morning, 
the Convention adjourned until Monday morning. 



JAMKs A. GARFIELD. ju? 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

GARFIELD NOMINATED FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 

STATES. 

On Monday, June 6 (1880), the Republican National 
Convention at Chicago was opened, as usual, with prayer. 
Eugene Hale then moved that the Convention proceed to 
ballot for a candidate for President of the United States. 
The motion was adopted, when President Hoar announced 
that during the balloting he would not allow any delay, 
debate or tricks, by changing votes after they were cast. 

The roll-call by States was begun in silence, and at the 
end of the first ballot the vote stood as follows : 

Grant. Blaine. Sherman. 

304. 2S4. 93. 

Edmund*. Windom. Washhurne. 

34. 10. 30. 

Eighteen ballotings occurred during the morning ses- 
sion without much change, excepting two votes given 
for General Garfield and one each for Hayes, McCrary 
and Davis. After the 28th ballot, at the evening session, 
with the addition of one vote for Governor Ilartranft 
(none for Hayes, McCrary or Davis), the Convention ad- 
journed until the next morning. It was estimated that 
fully twelve thousand persons, sweltering in the great 
heat, were looking upon the exciting scene, when the ad- 
journment took place at ten o'clock, 



568 TITE BTOQRAPITT OF 

It is related that when General Garfield was on his 
way to the Convention, the next morning, arm-in-arm with 
Governor Foster of Ohio, as he turned a corner, one of 
the hundreds of people who were thrusting advertise- 
ments, circulars and political squibs into the hands of 
passers-by, pressed a little piece of paper upon him, which 
he accepted mechanically, and as mechanically glanced at. 
His eye caught "Acts iv. II." Thinking he would not 
throw a Bible-leaf into the mud, he rolled it up and put 
it in his pocket (where he afterward found it) and con- 
tinued his walk. Had he read it, the idea of a pro- 
phecy would, no douht. have struck him, as the words of that 
verse are these : " This is the stone which was set at nought 
of yon builders, which is become the head of the corner. 
[Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none 
other name under heaven given among men, whereby we 
must be saved." Acts iv. 11,-12. 

At the thirtieth ballot that morning, there were indi- 
cations that the lesser candidates were giving way, but 
Grier, of Pennsylvania, who was the first to give a vote 
for General Garfield, adhered to the Ohio statesman. 
On the thirty-first ballot a New Mexican delegate created 
s<»nic merriment by voting for Conkling. and on the suc- 
ceeding ballot it was evident that the Blaine line was 
weakening, while Grant's stood solid and immovable. < >n 
the thirty-third ballot, the supporters of other candidates 
turned into the Blaine ranks, but were not enough 
ven ie the Grant column. They did not want 

Blaine, but they wished to defeat Grant. 

There \va- considerable excitemenl at the close of the 
thirty-fourth ballot, when Wisconsin gave 16 vote- for 
Garfield and Grant's vote was 312. Garfield arose and 



JAMES A. GARFIELD 5«fl 

addressed the chair. The President inquired for what 
purpose he rose. 

" To a question of order," said Garfield. 

" The gentleman will state it," said the president. 

" I challenge," said Garfield, " the correctness of the 
announcement that contains votes for me. No man has a 
right, without the consent of the person voted for, to 
have his name announced and voted for in tins Convention. 
Such consent I have not given." 

This was over-ruled by the President, amidst laughter 
against Garfield. The events which immediately fol- 
lowed were thus described by an eye-witness : 

" The thirty-fifth was the most interesting ballot of 
the day so far. The call was quick, people had begun to 
show better spirits, and when the 27 Indianians, who had 
been looking around for some way out, cast themselves 
for Garfield, there was a deafening shout, and Garfield's 
seat was immediately surrounded. Maryland followed 
with four for the Ohio dark horse, and Wisconsin for a 
second time turned in sixteen of her votes solid for him. 
It was apparent that the Blaine movement had broken 
up, and the friends of Grant and Garfield had the cheer- 
ing to themselves at the end of this ballot. 

" The call of the States for the thirty-sixth ballot be- 
gan amidst considerable excitement. Everybody saw that 
Blaine was now out of the way, and it was a matter of 
beating Grant so far as the opposition was concerned. It 
was evident, too, that it would have to be done with Gar- 
field, and Connecticut led off on this ballot with 11 votes 
for him. The most of the Washbttrne vote of Illinois fol- 
lewed this, and when Indiana was called, General Harri- 
son cast 29 of her 30 votes for Garfield. 

" The storm at this point broke. The people rose up 
and gave one tremendous cheer, and hats and handker- 
chiefs were tossed high, as they had so often been b< 



570 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

The confusion had not fairly subsided when Iowa followed 
with 22 votes for Garfield, and the outburst was renewed 
and gained in force with every fresh start. A little 
farther down Maine cast her 14 votes for the Ohio man, 
and the cheering was greater than ever. The confusion 
was so great that it was almost impossible to go on with 
the call. The delegations of Maryland, Massachusetts, 
Michigan, Minnesota, and Mississippi each insisted upon 
an individual roll-call, and the Blaine and Sherman votes 
nearly all turned up for Garfield. Conkling was dodging 
about a good deal at this time, but it dawned upon the 
Grant men that all was up with them. They were well 
disciplined, however, and hung together all the way down 
the call. It was getting down to Pennsylvania. Cam- 
eron sat imperturbable in the midst of his delegates, and 
was repeatedly urged to cast the solid Pennsylvania dele- 
gation for Blaine on this ballot. This would have pre- 
vented the nomination of Garfield on that ballot, at least, 
and might have stayed the Garfield cyclone by getting 
Blaine back on the track ; but Cameron at this time 
would not acknowledge that Garfield could go through as 
he did go. 

" Ohio was finally called. The delegation had been 
thrown into confusion, and it was some time in getting 
around, but it finally turned up with forty-three for Gar- 
field, tin' missing delegate being Garfield himself. The 
convention relapsed into cheers again, but recovered in a 
moment to hear General Beaver announce the Pennsyl- 
vania vote as thirty-seven for Grant, twenty-one for Gar- 
field. Gordon had swung around to Grant, and Hayes, 
who had voted for Blaine, felt himself released when 
Maine virtually put him out of the field, and went with 
the Grant people. The Grant men got in a little cheer 
here, but it was of shori life. As the call went on, as 
well as it could in t ho confusion, the Blaine delegates 
wheeled into line for Garfield. Vermont was wildly 
cheered when the ten Edmunds votes swung around, and 



JAMES A. GARFIKl.n. 



571 



Wisconsin's eighteen following shortly after, gave the man 
from Ohio a majority of the whole number. 

"The thousands had kept tally, and knew this. There 
was a momentary hush, as if the seven or eight thousand 
people were taking breath, and then the storm burst, and 
while the cheering went on the banners of the several 
States were borne to the place where Ohio's delegation 
sat, Garfield in the midst of them, and there was a scene 
almost equal to that of midnight on Friday. The band 
was playing ' The Battle-Cry of Freedom ' at the lower 
end of the hall, and when the cheering subsided for a 
moment the air was taken up and sung in chorus by thou- 
sands of voices. Everywhere flags were waving, and on 
the outside of the building cannon were booming and 
thousands were cheering. This went on for a quarter of 
an hour, during which time Conkling sat in his place at 
the head of his delegation without show of emotion of 
any sort. Efforts were made to get Garfield out, but he 
remained hidden in the midst of his Ohio friends. 

"After Wisconsin the call of the Territories had little 
interest, and was conducted in the midst of the greatest 
confusion. The call for the first time was verified by a 
re-reading of the votes, and at the announcement of the 
result there was another outburst. The changes in the 
vote by which the nomination was reached are shown in 
the following table : 

29th. 30th. 31st. 32d. 33d. 34th. 35th. 36th. 



Grant . . 


305 


306 


308 


309 


309 


312 


313 


306 


Blaine . 


. 278 


279 


276 


270 


276 


275 


25 1 


42 


Sherman . 


116 


120 


119 


117 


110 


107 


99 


3 


Edmunds. 


12 


11 


11 


11 


11 


11 


11 


— 


Washburne . 


35 


33 


31 


44 


44 


30 


23 


5 


Windom . 


7 


4 


3 


3 


4 


4 


3 


— 


Garfield . . 


2 


2 


1 


1 


1 


17 


50 


399 


Sheridan . 


— 


1 














Conkling. 


— 


— 


1 


— 


— 


— 


— 


— 



After the excitement had subsided there was a sort of 



572 TEE BIOGRAPHY OF 

love-feast, Mr. Conkling rose and moved that the name of 
James A. Garfield be ananimously presented as the nomi- 
nee of the Convention, and .-aid : " I trust that the zeal, 
the fervor, and now the unanimity of the scenes of the 
Convention will be transplanted to the fields of the 
country, and that all of us who have borne a part against 
each other will be found, with equal zeal, bearing the 
banners and carrying the lances of the Republican party 
into the ranks of the enemy." 

General Logan .-aid: "Whatever may have trans- 
pired in this Convention that may have produced feelings 
of annoyance will be, I hope, considered as a matter of 
the past. I, with the friends of one of the grandest men 
on the face of the earth, stood here to fight a friendly 
battle for his nomination, but this Convention has chosen 
another leader, and the men who stood by Grant will be 
seen in the front of the contest for Mr. Garfield. . 
As one of the Republicans from Illinois, I second the 
nomination of James A. Garfield, ami hope it will be 
made unanimous." It was done. 

Mr. Halo of Maine, said : " The nominee of this Con- 
vention " no new or untried man, and in this respect he 
is no "dark horse;" when he came here, representing his 
State in the front of hi- delegation, and was Been here, 
every man knew him because of his record; and because 
of that and because of our faith in him, and because we 
were, in the emergency, '.'lad to help make him the candi- 
date of tin- Republican party for President of the United 
Stat.-, because, 1 say, of these things. 1 shall stand here 
to pledge the .Maine forces in tins Convention to earnest 
effort from now until the ides of November, to help carry 
him to the Presidential chair." 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. :,::: 

The chief business of the afternoon session was the 
nomination of a candidate for the office of Vice-President 
of the United States. After several names had been 
mentioned, General "Woodford of New York nominated 
Chester A. Arthur of that city. Only a single balloting 
was necessary, as Arthur received an overwhelming ma- 
jority, or ±68 votes, in the first and only ballot. It, also, 
was made unanimous. 

The nomination of General Garfield was hailed with 
gladness by the Republicans throughout the Union, not 
only because of the high character of the nominee, but 
because it promised unity in the Republican party and an 
assurance of victory at the election in the Fall. He was 
the recipient of many congratulatory telegrams and let- 
ters. President Hayes telegraphed from the Executive 
Mansion, on the day of the nomination : 

"You will receive no heartier congratulation to-day 
than mine ; this both for your own and your country's 

sake." 

Secretary Sherman telegraphed from "Washington on 
the same day : 

"I congratulate you with all my heart upon your 
nomination as President of the United States. You have 
saved the Republican party and the country from a groat 
peril and assured the continued success of Republican 
principles." 

Mr. Blaine telegraphed the same day : 

" 1.45 p. m. 
" Maine's vote, this moment cast for you, goes with 
my hearty concurrence. I hope it will aid in securing 



.•574 THE BIOQllM'UY OF 

your nomination and assuring victory to the Republican 

party.*' 

To this General Garfield immediately replied : 
" Accept my thanks for your generous dispatch." 

In the House of Representatives at Washington the 
announcement of the nomination was received with de- 
monstrations of great joy and singular unanimity on the 
part of the Republicans. The House adjourned at 2.30 
in the- afternoon when a meeting of Republicans was at 
once held in the TIall, General Ilawley in the chair. After 
a few brief speeches, a committee was appointed to send 
a congratulatory telegram to General Garfield. It was as 
follows : 

" Washington, June 8, 1880. 
"To General J. A. Garfield, Chicago: Under in- 
struction of your Congressional associates, assembled in 
the hall of the House of Representatives. General Ilawley 
in the chair, we congratulate you on your nomination as 
the candidate of the great Republican party for the Presi- 
dency of the United, States. 

" W. D. Kiii i-., Geo. M. Robeson, 

Tho8. .M. Browne, Jobepb J. Martin, 

Horace F. Page, D. P. Richardson, 

Thomas J. Henderson." 

The students al Williams College, bis alma mater, 
appeared almost wild with delighl and enthusiasm, on 
hearing of Garfield's nomination. A " Garfield Club"' 
was immediately forraed,with a membership of over three 
hundred. In the evening a ratification meeting was held, 




THE (PEOPLE VIEWING- THE I£EJ£#IJTS IJ 
IlOTTJ}T(pjl JIT Wjl8HIJTGT0}f. 



JAMES A. QABFIELP. 

and the students sang, as a chorus to " Marching through 
Georgia :" 

" Hurrah ! Hurrah I We'll shout for General G., 
Hurrah ! Hurrah ! a Williams man was he, 
And so we'll sing the chorus from old Williams to the sea!" 

An incident connected with the day of his nomination, 
may here appropriately tind a place as a coincidence. Gen- 
eral Garfield owned a residence in Washington. During 
his absence it was occupied by his private stenographer, 
George W. Rose, who related the following : 

" On the day of the general's nomination for Presi- 
dent, at about the very moment of absolute time (as the 
Signal Service Bureau would say) that the nomination 
was made, allowing for the difference in longitude be- 
tween here and Chicago, a magnificent bald eagle, after 
circling round the Park, swooped down and rested on the 
general's house. One of my children was playing out of 
doors at the time, and ran in to call the attention of the 
family to this striking spectacle. Several of the family 
and myself went out and saw the source of the child's 
wonder. Before the eagle rose from its strange perch a 
dozen people noticed and commented upon it. An old 
Roman would have seen in this an augury of the most in- 
spiring character. But we Americans are free from su- 
perstitions, and so it was a mere ' coincidence. 



? » 



The nominating Convention at Chicago appointed a 
committee to wait on General Garfield and inform him 
of his nomination. The committee, with Senator Eoar, 
President of the Convention, at its head, waited upon him 
the same evening (June 8), at his rooms at the Grand 
Pacific Hotel. They were cordially received, when Sena- 
tor Hoar said : 



578 TEE BIOGRAPHY OF 

" General Garfield, the gentlemen present are ap- 
pointed by the National Republican Convention, repre- 
sentatives of every State in the Union, who have been 
directed to convey to von the formal ceremonial notice of 
your nomination as the Republican candidate for the 
office of President of the United States. It is known to 
you that the Convention which has made this nomination 
assembled divided in opinion and in council in regard to 
the candidate. It may not be known to you with what 
unanimity of pleasure and of hopes the Convention has 
received the result which it has reached. You represent 
not only the distinctive principles and opinion of the Re- 
publican party, but you represent also its unity, and in 
the name of every State in the Union represented on the 
committee, I convey to you the assurance of the cordial 
support of the Republican party of these States at the 
coming election." 

General Garfield replied : 

"Mr. President and Gentlemen ; I assure you that the 
information you have officially given me brings the sense 
of very grave responsibility, and especially so in view of 
the fact that I was a member of your body, a fact which 
could not have been so with propriety had I had the 
slightest expectation that my own name would be con- 
nected with the nomination for the office. I have felt 
with you great solicitude regarding the situation of our 
party during the Btruggle, but believing that you are cor- 
rci ■! in assuring me that substantial unity has been 
reached in the conclusion, it gives me gratification far 
greater than any personal pleasure your announcement 
can living. 1 accept the trusi committed to my hands. 
■ ilic work of our party, as to the character of the 
campaign to be entered upon, I will take an early occa- 
sion in reply more fully than I can properly do now. I 
thank yon for the assurances of confidence ami esteem 
and unity which you have presented me with, and shall 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 579 

hope that we may see our future as promising aa are the 
indications of to-night." 

General Gartield left Chicago for his home at Mentor, 
in a special car for Cleveland, accompanied by sonic inti- 
mate friends. His journey was a continuous ovation. 
When he reached Cleveland he was received by an im- 
mense multitude, who greeted him with great enthusiasm. 

Just before he left for Chicago, General Garfield 
promised to preside at the Commencement exercises of 
Hiram college. To that little town he repaired, where he 
met his wife and children, and many old friends. The stu- 
dents of the college gathered around him with expressions 
of congratulation, affection and reverence. On the follow- 
ing day he presided at the exercises of. the college, 
according to promise. In a brief address he said : 

" Fellow-citizens, Old Neighbors and Friends of 
many Years : It has always given me pleasure to come 
back here and look upon these faces. It has always given 
me new courage and new friends, for it has brought back 
a large share of that richness which belongs to those 
things out of which come the joys of life. 

"While sitting here this afternoon, watching your 
faces and listening to the very interesting address which hae 
just been delivered, it has occurred to me, that the leasl 
thing you have, that all men have enough of, is perhaps the 
thing that you care for the least, and that is your leisure 
— the leisure you have t<> think; the leisure you have to 
be let alone ; the leisure you have to throw the plummet 
into your mind, and sound the depth and dive for things 
below; the leisure you have to walk about the towers 
yourself, and find how strong they are or how weak they 
are ; to determine what needs building up : how to work, 
and how to know all that shall make you the final I 
you are to be. Oh, these hours of building ! 



580 TEE BIOGRAPHY OF 

" If the Superior Being of the universe would look 
down upon the world to find the most interesting object, 
it would be the unfinished, unformed character of the 
: man or young woman. Those behind nic have 
probably in the main settled this question. Those who 
have passed into middle manhood and middle womanhood 
are about what they shall always be, and there is but little 
left of interest, as their characters are all developed. 

"But to your young and your yet unformed natures, no 
man knows the possibilities that lie before you in your hearts 
and intellects : and, •while you are working out the possi- 
bilities with that splendid leisure that you need, you are to 
lie mo-! envied. I congratulate you on your leisure. I com- 
mend you to treat it as your gold, as your wealth, as your 
treasure, out of which you can draw all possible treasures 
that can be laid down when you have your natures un- 
folded and developed in the possibilities of the future. 

"This place is too full of memories for me to trust 
myself to speak upon, and I will not. But I draw again 
to-day, as I have for a quarter of a century, life, evidence 
of strength, confidence and affection from the people 
who gather in this place. I thank you for the permission 
to see you and meet you and greet you as I have done here 
to-day.'" 

After resting a few days at his summer home, General 
Garfield proceeded to Washington. On the night after 
his arrival he Mas serenaded, and in response to the 
cheers given him by a large multitude of citizens who had 
gathered on the occasion, he said: 

" Fellow-Citizens : While T have looked upon this 
-it -at array, I believe 1 have gotten a new idea of the 
majesty of the A.merican people. When I reflect that 
wherever you liml sovereign power every revereni heart 
on this earth bows before it, and w In u I remember thai 

here, for a hundred } ear.-, we have denied the sovereignty 



JAMBS A. GARFIELD. 

of any man, and in place of it we have asserted the sover- 
eignty of all in place of one. I see before me so vast a con- 
course, that it is easy for me to imagine thai the rest of 
the American people are gathered here to-night, and if 
they were all here, every man would stand uncovered, all 
in unsandaled feet in presence of the majesty of the only 
sovereign power in this Government under Almighty G-ocL 
[Cheers.] And, therefore, to th'is great audience I pay 
the respectful homage that in part belongs to the sover- 
eignty of the people. I thank you for this grdal and 
glorious demonstration. I am not, for one moment, mis- 
led into believing that it refers to so poor a thing as any 
one of our number. I know it means yonr reverence for 
your Government, your reverence for its laws, your rever- 
ence for its institutions, and your compliment to one who 
is placed for a moment in relations to you of peculiar im- 
portance. For all these reasons I thank you. I cannot 
at this time utter a word on the subject of general politics. 
I would not mar the cordiality of this welcome, to which 
to some extent all are gathered, by any reference except to 
the present moment and its significance ; but I wish to 
say that a large portion of this assemblage to-night are 
my comrades, late of the war for the Union. For them I 
can speak with entire propriety, and can say that these 
very streets heard the measured tread of your disciplined 
feet, years ago, when the imperiled Republic needed your 
hands and your hearts to save it, and you came back with 
your numbers decimated; but those you left behind were im- 
mortal and glorified heroes forever ; and those you brought 
back came carrying under tattered banners and in bronze 
hands the ark of the covenant of your Republic in safety 
out of the bloody baptism of the war [cheers], and 
brought it in safety to be saved forever by your valor and 
the wisdom of your brethren who were at home, and by 
this you were again added to the great civil army of the 
Republic. I greet you, comrades and fellow-soldiers, 
and the great body of distinguished citizens who arc 
gathered here to-night, who are the strong stay and sup- 



582 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

port of the business, of the prosperity, of the peace, of 
the civic ardor and glory of the Republic, and I thank 
you for your welcome to-night. It was said in a wel- 
come to one who came to England to be a part of her 
glory — and all the nation spoke when it was said : 

" ' Normans and Saxons and Danes are we, 
But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee. 

"And we say to-night, of all nations, of all the peo- 
ple, soldiers and civilians, there is one name that welds 
us all into one. It is the name of American citizen, un- 
der the Union and under the glory of the flag that led us 
to victory and to peace. [Applause.] For this magnifi- 
cent welcome I thank you with all there is in my heart." 

General Garfield soon returned to Mentor, and on the 
3d of July delivered an eloquent and touching address at 
the dedication of a Boldiers 5 monument at Painesville, 
Ohio. A few days afterwards he sent to Senator Hoar, 
the Presidenl of the Chicago Nominating Convention, the 
following formal letter of acceptance : 

• Mentor, Ohio, July 10, 1880. 

" Dear Sir : — On the evening of the 8th of June last 
T bad the honor to receive from you, in presence of the 
committee of which yon were chairman, the official an- 
nouncemenl that the Republican National Convention at 
Chicago had thai day- nominated me for their candidate 
I'm- President of the United States. I accept the nomina- 
tion with gratitude for the confidence it implies, and 
with a deep sense of the responsibilities it imposes. I 
cordially indorse the principles sel forth in the platform 
adopted by the Convention : on nearly all of the subjects 
of whirl) it treats my opinions are on record among the 
published proceedings of Congress. 

"I venture, however, to make speoial mention 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of some of the principal topics which ;ire Likely bo 
become subjects of discussion without reviewing the con- 
troversies which have been settled during the lust twenty 
years, and with no purpose or wish to revive the passions 
of the late war. 

STATE SUPREMACY. 

" It should be said that while Republicans fully rec- 
ognize and will strenuously defend all the rights retained 
by the people and all the rights reserved to the States, 
they reject the pernicious doctrine of State supremacy, 
which so long crippled the functions of the National 
Government, and at one time brought the Union very 
near to destruction. They insist that the United States 
is a nation, with ample power of self-preservation; that 
its constitution and laws, made in pursuance thereof, are 
the supreme law of the land ; that the right of the nation 
to determine the method by which its own legislation 
shall be created, cannot be surrendered without abdica- 
ting one of the fundamental powers of the Government ; 
that the national laws relating to the election of repre- 
sentatives in Congress shall neither be violated or evaded; 
that every elector shall be permitted freely and without 
intimidation to cast his lawful ballot at such election, 
and have it honestly counted, and that the potency of his 
vote shall not be destroyed by the fraudulent vote of any 
other person. 

NATIONAL WELL-BEING. 

" The best thoughts and energies of our people should 
be directed to those great questions of national well-being 
in which all have common interest. Such efforts will 
soonest restore perfect peace to those who were lately in 
arms against each other, for justice and good-will will 
out-last passion, but it is certain that the wounds cannot 
be completely healed and the spirit of brotherhood cannot 
fully pervadethewholecountryunt.il every citiaen, rich 
or poor, white or black, is secure in the free and unquali- 
fied enjoyment of every civil and political right guaran- 
teed by the constitution and the laws. Wherever thi 



584 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

joynient of this right is not assured, discontent will pre- 
vail, immigration will cease, and the social and industrial 
forces will continue to be disturbed by the migration of 
laborers and the consequent diminution of prosperity. 
The National government should exercise all its constitu- 
tional authority to put an end to these evils, for all the 
people ami all the States are members of one body, and 
no member can suffer without injury to all. 

"'The most serious evils which now afflict the South 
arise from the fact that there is not such freedom and 
toleration of political opinion and action that the minor- 
ity party can exercise an effective and wholesome restraint 
upon the party in power. Without such restraint party 
rule becomes tyrannical and corrupt. The prosperity 
which is made possible in the South by its great advan- 
tages of soil and climate, will never be realized until 
every voter can freely and safely support any party he 
pleases. 

POPULAR EDUCATION. 

"Next in importance to freedom and justice is popu- 
lar education, without which neither justice nor freedom 
can be permanently maintained. Its interests are en- 
trusted to the States, and the involuntary action of the 
people. Whatever help the nation can justly afford 
should be generously given to aid the States in support- 
ing common Bchools, but it would be unjust to our people 
and dangerous to our institutions to apply any portion of 
the n of the nation or vf the States to the supporl 

of sectarian schools. The separation of the Church and 
the State in everything relating to taxation should be 
absolute. 

NATIONAL FINANCES. 
"On the subject of national finances my views have 
been bo frequently and fullj expressed thai little is need: 
i'il in the way of additional statement. The public debt 

is now BO well -ecureel, and the rate of annual interest has 

been bo reduced, by refunding, thai rigid economy in ex- 
penditures and the faithful application of our surplus re- 



JAMES A. GARFlEl t>. 

venues to the payment of the principal of the debt will 
gradually but certainly free the people from its burdens 
and close with honor the financial chapter of the war. 
At the same time the Government can provide for all its 
ordinary expenditures, and discharge its sacred obliga- 
tions to the soldier of the Union and to the widows and 
orphans of those Avho fell in its defence. 

" The resumption of specie payments, which the Re- 
publican party so courageously and successfully accom- 
plished, has removed from the field of controversy many 
questions that long and seriously disturbed the credit of 
the Government and the business of the country. Our 
paper currency is now as national as the flag, and resump- 
tion has not only made it everywhere equal to coin, but 
has brought into use our store of gold and silver. The 
circulating medium is more abundant than ever before, 
and we need only to maintain the equality of all our 
dollars to insure to labor and capital a measure of value, 
from the use of which no one can suffer loss. Tfye great 
prosperity which the country is now enjoying should not 
be endangered by any violent changes or doubtful finan- 
cial experiments. 

CUSTOMS LAWS. 

" In reference to our customs laws a policy should be 
pursued which will bring revenues to the Treasury, and 
will enable the labor and capital employed in our greal 
industries to compete fairly in our own markets with the 
labor and capital of foreign producers. "We legislate for 
the people of the United States, not for the whole world, 
and -it is our glory that the American laborer is more in- 
telligent and better paid than his foreign competitor. 
Our country cannot be independent unless its people, 
with their abundant natural resources, possess the requi- 
site skill at any time to clothe, arm, and equip themselves 
for war, and in time of peace to produce all the □ 
sary implements of labor. It was the manifest intention 
of the founders of the Government to provide for Un- 
common defence, not by standing armies alone, but by 



586 THE BIOGRAPHY or 

raising among the people a greater army of artisans, 
whose intelligence and skill should powerfully contribute 
to the Bafety and glory of the Nation. 

" Fortunately for the interests of commerce, there is 
no longer any formidable opposition to appropriations for 
the improvement of our harbors and great navigable 
rivers, provided thai the expenditures for that purpose 
are strictly limited to works of National importance. 

"The Mississippi River, with its great tributaries, is 
of such vital importance to so many millions of people 
that the safety of its navigation requires exceptional con- 
sideration. In order to secure to the Nation the control 
bf all its waters, President Jefferson negotiated the pur- 
chase of a vast territory extending from the Gulf of 
Mexico to the Pacific Ocean. The wisdom of Congress 
should be invoked to devise some plan by which that 
great river shall cease to be a terror to those who dwell 
upon its banks, and by which its shipping may safely 
carry the industrial products of twenty-five millions of 
people, The interests of agriculture, which is the basis 
of all our material prosperity, and in which seven t welfths 
of our population are engaged, as well as the interests of 
manufactures and commerce, demand that the facilities 
for cheap transportation shall be increased by the use of 
all our great water-courses. 

THE CHINESE QUESTION. 

•• The materia] interests of this country, the traditions 
of its settlement, and the Bentiment of our people have 
led the Government to offer the widest hospitality to emi- 
grants who seek our shores for new and happier homes, 
willing to Bhare the burdens as well as the ben< fits of our 
society, and intending that their posterity shall become 
an (indistinguishable pari of our population. 

-The recenl movemenl of the Chinese to our Pacific 
• partakes bul little of the qualities of such an emi- 
gration, either in its purposes or its result. It ifl too 
much like an importation to be welcomed without restric- 
tion ; too much like an invasion to be looked upon with- 



JAMES A. GMiFTELD. 

out solicitude. We cannot consent to allow an\ form of 
servile labor to be introduced among u.- under the guise 
of immigration. Recognizing the gravity of this subject, 
the present administration, supported by Congress, has 
sent to China a commission of distinguished citizen- for 
the purpose of securing such a modification of the exist- 
ing treaty as will prevent the evils likely to arise from the 
present situation. It is confidently believed that these 
diplomatic negotiations will be successful without the 
loss of commercial intercourse between the two great 
powers, which promises a great increase of reciprocal 
trade and the enlargement of our markets. Should these 
efforts fail, it will be the duty of Congress to mitigate the 
evils already felt, and prevent their increase by such re- 
strictions as, without violence or injustice, will place upon 
a sure foundation the peace of our communities and the 
freedom and* dignity of labor. 

CIVIL SEKVICF. 

" The appointment of citizens to the various executive 
and judicial offices of the Government is, perhaps, the 
most difficult of all duties which the constitution has im- 
posed upon the executive. The Convention wisely de- 
mands that Congress shall co-operate with the executive 
departments in placing the civil service on a better basis. 
Experience has proved that, with our frequent changes of 
administration, no system of reform can be made effect- 
ive and permanent without the aid of legislation. Ap- 
pointments to the military and naval service are so regu- 
lated by law and custom as to leave but little ground of 
complaint. It may not be wise to make similar regula- 
tions by law for civil service, but without invading the 
authority or necessary discretion of the executive, Con- 
gress should devise a method that will determine the 
tenure of office, and greatly reduce the uncertainty which 
makes that service so uncertain and unsatisfactory. 
Without depriving any officer of his rights, as a citizen, 
the Government should require him to discharge all his 



B8fl THE BI0G11APIIY OF 

official duties with intelligence, efficiency, and faithful- 
ness. 

" To select wisely from our vast population those who 
are best fitted for the many offices to be filled requires an 
acquaintance far beyond the range of any one man. The 
executive should therefore seek and receive the informa- 
tion and assistance of those whose knowledge of the com- 
muuities in which the duties are to be performed, best 
qualifies them to aid in making the wisest choice. 

THE PLATFORM. 

" The doctrines announced by the Chicago Convention 
are not the temporary devices of a party to attract votes 
and carry an election. They are deliberate convictions 
resulting from a careful study of the spirit of our insti- 
tutions, the events of our history, and the best impulses 
of our people. In my judgment, these principles should 
control the legislation and administration of the Govern- 
ment. In any event they will guide my conduct until ex- 
perience points out a better way. If elected, it will be 
my purpose to enforce strict obedience to the Constitution 
and the laws, and to promote as best I may the interest 
and honor of the whole country, relying for support upon 
the wisdom of Congress, the intelligence and patriotism 
of the people, and the favor of God. 

" With great respect, I am, very truly yours, 

"J. A. Garfield. 
" To Hon. George F. Hoar, 

" Chairman of the Committee." 

Five davs after General Garfield's letter of acceptance 
was written. General Arthur also wrote a letter of accept- 
ance to Senator 1 [oar, as follows : 

" Nkw York, July 15, 1880. 
"Dear Sir: I accepl tin- position assigned me by the 
greal party whose action yon announce. This acceptance 
implies an approval of the principles declared by the Con- 
vention, but recent tfeage permits me to add some express- 



JAMES .1. OARFIELP. 891 

sion of my own views. The righl and * 1 u i \ to secure hon- 
esty and order in popular elections is a matter so vital 

that it must stand in the front. The authority of tin; 
National Government to preserve from fraud and force 
elections, at which its own officers arc chosen, is a chief 
point on which the two parties arc plainly and intensely 
opposed. Acts of Congress for ten years have in New 
York and elsewhere done much to curb the violence and 
wrong to which the ballot and count have been again and 
again suhjectccL, sometimes despoiling great cities,-some- 
times stilling the voice of the whole State, often placing 
not only in Congress, but on the Bench and in Legis- 
latures, numbers of men never chosen by the people. 

" The Democratic party, since gaining possession of 
the two Houses of Congress, has made these laws the ob- 
ject of bitter, ceaseless assault, and despite all resistance 
has hedged them with restrictions cunningly contrived to 
baffle and paralyze them. This aggressive majority bold- 
ly attempted to extort from the Executive his approval of 
various enactments destructive of these election laws, by 
revolutionary threats that a constitutional exercise* of the 
veto power would be punished by withholding appropria- 
tions necessary to carry on the Government, and these 
threats were actually carried out by refusing needed ap- 
propriations and by forcing an extra session of Congress, 
lasting for months, and resulting in concessions to this 
usurping demand, which are likely in many Slates to sub- 
ject the majority to the lawless will of a minority. Omi- 
nous signs of a public disapproval alone subdued this ar- 
rogant power into a sullen surrender for the time being 
of a part of its demands. 

" The Republican party has strongly approved the 
stern refusal of its representatives to suffer the overthrow 
of statutes believed to be salutary and just. It has always 
insisted, and now insists, that the Grovernmenl of the 
United States of America is empowered and in duty hound 
to effectually protect the elections denoted bj the Consti- 
tution as National. More than this, the Republican party 
22 



592 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

holds as the cardinal point in its creed that the Govern- 
ment should, by every means known to the Constitution, 
protect all American citizens everywhere in the full en- 
joyment of their civil and political rights. As a great 
part of its work of reconstruction, the Republican party 
gave the ballot to the emancipated slave as his right and 
defense. A large increase in the number of members of 
Congress and of the Electoral College from former slave- 
holding States was the immediate result. 

'• The history of recent years abounds in evidence that 
in many ways and in many places, especially where their 
number has been great enough to endanger Democratic 
control, the very men by whose citizenship this increase 
of representation was effected have heen debarred and 
robbed of their voice and their vote. It is true that no 
State statute or Constitution in so many words denies or 
abridges the exercise of their political rights, but bodies 
employed to bar their way are no less effectual. 

"It is a suggestive and startling thought that the in- 
creased power derived from the enfranchisement of a race 
m.w denied its share in governing the country, wielded by 
those who lately sought the overthrow of the Government, 
is now the sole reliance to defeat the party which repre- 
sented the sovereignty and nationality of the American 
people in the greatest crisis of our history. Republicans 
cherish none of the resentments which may have animated 
fchem during the actual conflict of arms. They long for 
a full and real reconciliation between tli< sections which 
were needlessly and lamentably at strife. They sincerely 
offer the hand of good will, but they ask in return a 
pledge of good faith. They deeply feel that the party 
whose career is bo illustrious in great and patriotic 
achievements will not fulfill its destiny until peace and 
prosperity are established in all the land, nor until liberty 
of thought, conscience, and action, and equality of oppor- 
tunity -hall not he merely cold formalities of the statute, 
hut living birthrights which the humble may confidently 
claim, and the powerful dare not deny. 



JAMhs A. GARFIELD. 598 

CIVIL SERVICE. 

"The resolution referring to the public service B< 
to me deserving of approval. Surely no man should In; 
the incumbent of an office the duties of which he ie for a 
cause unfit to perform, who is lacking in ability, fidelity, 
or integrity, which a proper administration of such office 
demands. This sentiment would doubtless unci with 
general acquiescence, but opinion has been widely divided 
upon the wisdom and practicability of various reformator] 
schemes which have been suggested, and of certain pro- 
posed regulations governing appointments to public office. 
The efficiency of such regulations has been distrusted 
mainly because they have seemed to exalt mere educa- 
tional and abstract tests above general business capacity 
and even special fitness for the particular work in baud. 
It seems to me that the rules which should be applied to 
the management of public service may be properlj con- 
formed in the main to such as regulate the condin 
successful private business. Original appoint incuts should 
be based upon ascertained fitness. The tenure of office 
should be stable. Positions of responsibility shouli 
far as practicable, be filled by the promotion of worthy 
and efficient officers. The investigation of all complaints 
and the punishment of all official misconduct should be 
prompt and thorough. 

"These views, which I have long held, repeat idly de- 
clared, and uniformly applied when called upon to act, I 
find embodied in the resolution, which of course 1 approve. 
I will add that by the acceptance of public office, whether 
high or low, one does not, in my judgment, escape an\ of 
his responsibility as a citizen or lose or impair any of Ilia 
rights as a citizen, and that he should enjoy absolute lib- 
erty to think and speak and act in political matters accord- 
ing to his own will and conscience, provided only that he 
honorably, faithfully, and fully discharges all his official 
duties. 

FINANCE. 

"The resumption of specie payments— on< of the 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

l'raiis of Republican policy — has brought a return of 
abundant prosperity and the settlement of man} distract- 
ing questions. The restoration of sound money, the large 
reduction of our public debt and the burden of interest, 
the high advancement of the public credit — all attest the 
ability ai 1 courage of the Republican party to deal with 
such li tianoial problems as may hereafter demand solution. 
Our paper currency is now as good as gold, and silver is 
performing its legitimate function for the purpose of 
change. The principles which should govern the rela- 
tions of these elements of the currency are simple and 
clear. There must be no deteriorated coin, no depreci- 
ated paper, and every dollar, whether of metal or paper, 
should stand the test of the world's standard. 
'• POPULAR EDUCATION". 

"The value of popular education can hardly be over- 
stated. Although its interests must of necessity be chiefly 
confided to voluntary effort and individual action of the 
several States, they should be encouraged so far as bhe 
Constitution permits by the generous cooperation of the 
National Government. The interests of a whole country 
demand that the advantages of our common-school system 
should be brought within the reach of every citizen, and 
that no revenues of the Nation or the State should be de- 
voted to the support of sectarian schools. 

"TARIFF AND INTERNAL I M l'i;oV I.W KVls. 

•• Such changes should be made in the present tariff and 
System of taxation as will relieve any overburdened industry 
or class, and enable our manufacturers and artisans to 
Competo successfully with those of other lands. 

"The Government should aid works of internal im- 
provement, national in (heir character, and should pro- 
mote the development of .mi- water-courses and harbors 
wherever tin- general interests of commerce require. 

••Ill I. KI.P! i:l l< \ \ I'A RTY. 

"Four years ago, as now. the nation stood at the 
threshold of a Presidential election, ami the Republican 
party, in soliciting a continuance of it.- ascendency, 



UES .1. QARFIKLD. 595 

founded its hope of- success, nol upon its promises, but 
TiliDii its history. Its subsequent course has been such as 
to strengthen the claims which it then made to the confi- 
dence and support of the country. On the other hand, 

considerations more urgent than have ever before existed 
forbid the accession of its opponents to power. Their 
success, if success attend them, must chiefly come from the 
united support, of that section which soughi the forcible 
destruction of the Union, and which, according to all the 
teachings of our past history, will demand ascendency 
in the councils of the party to whose triumph it will have 
made by far the largest contribution. 

"There is the gravest reason for the apprehension 
that exorbitant claims upon the public Treasury, by no 
means limited to the hundreds of millions already covered 
by bills introduced in Congress within the past four years, 
would be successfully urged if the Democratic party should 
succeed in supplementing its present control of the 
National Legislature by electing the Executive also. 

"There is danger in intrusting the whole law-making 
power of the Government to a party which has in almost 
every Southern State repudiated obligations quite as sacred 
as those to which the faith of the Nation now stands 
pledged. 

" I do not doubt that success awaits the Republican 
party, and thai it,- triumph will assure a just, economical, 
and patriotic administration. I am, respect fully, your 
obedient servant, 

C. A. Arthur. 

" To the lion. George F. Hoar, President of the Re- 
publican National Con ■ ntion" 



59G THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

CHAPTER XXIY. 
garfield's election and inauguration. 

Soon after the nominations for President and Vice- 
President were made and the candidates had accepted, the 
race for the precious goal was begun. There were four 
other candidates for the presidency in the field, besides 
Garfield, namely : James B. Weaver of Iowa, nominated 
by the "National," or Greenback party, June 9 ; Neal 
Dow of Maine, nominated by the Prohibitionists. June 
17; General Winfield S. Hancock, U. S. Army, nomi- 
nated by the Democrats, June 22 ; and John "W. Phelps 
of Vermont, nominated by the anti-Masons. 

In the canvass which ensued, and which became more 
and more vigorous every day until the election in Novem- 
ber, there was the usual partisan vituperation, personal 
defamation, mendacity, intrigues and low trickery resorted 
to by the baser sort of politicians on both sides. Every 
false charge, long before met and refuted, such as com- 
plicity in the Credit Mobilier scheme, was reiterated 
against Garfield; and even the National Committee of his 
political opponents descended to employ the disreputable 
scheme for injuring his character, of circulating a fac- 
simile of a forged letter. His simple denial of its genu 
[neness was sufficient be satisfy the minds of all honorable 
men that it was a forgery. 

General Grant, Senator Blaine and Secretary Sher- 
man all generously and patriotically at one gave their 
influence and labor m0Bl cheerfully for the promotion of 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 307 

General Garfield's election. Mr. Conkling did nol enter 
the field as a partisan speaker until Borne time afterwards, 
and this delay caused unfavorable speculation as to the 
cause. These were dispelled by his subsequent zeal in 
the campaign. 

A great Republican Conference was called at the 
Fifth Avenue hotel, in the city of New York, to which 
General Garfield was invited. He attended. His journey 
from Mentor to the great metropolis was like the tri- 
umphant march of a victor crowned with laurels, in tin: 
enthusiastic demonstrations of the people on the way. He 
reached New York on the evening of August 0, 1880. 
There he was met and cordially received by some of the 
distinguished leaders of the Republican party in th e 
Union. 

On that evening there was an immense multitude <>t 
the better sort of people of the city gathered in front of 
the Fifth Avenue hotel, and listened to the following 
brief address from the newly-chosen standard-bearer of 
the Republican party. The veterans of the Civil "War — 
the "Boys in Blue" — had taken this opportunity to ex- 
tend greetings to their old comrade in arms, and to them 
his words were largely addressed : 

" Comrades of the Boys in Blue and Fellow- 
Citizens of New York: I cannot look upon this great 
assemblage and these old veterans that have marched past 
us and listen to the welcome from our comrade who has 
just spoken (Speaker Sharpe), without remembering how 
great a thing it is to live in this Union, and be a pan i f 
it. This is New York, and yonder, toward the battery, 
more than one hundred years ago, a young Btudent of 
Columbia College was arguing the ideas of the American 
Revolution and American Union against the un-American 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

loyalty to monarchy of his college presidenl and profes- 
sors. By and by ho wont into the patriot army, was 
placed on the staff of Washington to light the battles of 
his country, and while in camp, before ho was twenty-one 
years old, upon a drum-Jiead, he wrote a letter which con- 
tained every germ of the Constitution of the United States. 
That student, soldier, statesman and great leader of 
thought. Alexander Hamilton of New York, made this 
Republic glorious by bis thinking, and left his lasting 
impress upon New York, the foremost State of the Union. 
And here on this island, the scene of his early triumphs, 
we gather to-night, soldiers of the new war, representing 
the same ideas of union and glory, and adding to the 
column of the monument that Hamilton, and Washington, 
and the heroes of the Revolution reared. 

"Gentlemen, ideas outlive men. Ideas outlive all 
things, and you, who fought in the war for the Union, 
fought for immortal ideas ; and by their might you crowned 
our war with victory. But victory was worth nothing 
except for the fruits that were under it, in it and above 
it. We meet to-night as veterans and comrades to stand 
sacred guard around the truths for which we fought, and 
while we have life to meel and grasp the hands of a com- 
rade, we will stand by the great truths of the war. And. 
comrades, among the convict ions of that war which have sunk 
dee}) into our hearts, there are some thai we can never forget. 
Think of the greal elevating spirit of the war itself. We 
gathered the hoys from all our farms, and shops, and 
.stores, and schools, and towns, all over the Republic, and 

they went forth unknown to fame, bul returned enrolled 
on the roster of immortal heroes. They wentjn the spirit 
of those soldiers of EL Dry of A.gincourt, to whom he said: 

" ' Who Hi is day sheds his tiln.nl with me, 

To day BhalJ be my brother. Were be ne'er so vile, 
This day shall gentle his condition.' 

"And it did gentle the condition and elevate the 
bear! of every soldier who fought in it. And he shall be 



JAMBS .1. QABVIELD. 

our brother for evermore. And this thing wo will re- 
member; we will remember our allies who fought with us. 
Soon after the great struggle began, we looked behind the 
army of white rebels, and saw 4,000,000 of black people 
condemned to toil as slaves for our enemies ; and we found 
that i he hearts of these 4,000,000 were Cod-inspired with the 
spirit of liberty, and that they were our friends. We have 
seen white men betray the flag, but in all thai long, dreary 
war we never saw a traitor in a black skin. < >ur prisoners, 
escaping from the starvation of prisons, fleeing to our 
lines by the light of the North Star, never feared to enter 
the black man's cabin and ask for bread. In all thai, 
period of suffering and danger no Union soldier was ever 
betrayed by a black man or woman. And now that we 
have made them free, so long as we live we will stand by 
these black allies. We will stand by them until the sun 
of liberty, fixed in the firmament of our Constitution, 
shall shine with equal ray upon ever man, black or white. 
throughout the Union. 

"Now, fellow-citizens, fellow-soldiers! in this there La 
all the beneficence of eternal justice, and by this we will 
stand forever. The great poet has said that in indi\ idual 
life we rise in stepping stones of our dead selves to higher 
things; and the Republic rises on the glorious achieve- 
ments of its dead and loving heroes to a higher and nobler 
national life. We must stand guard over our posl as 
soldiers, as patriots, and over our country as the common 
heritage of us all. 

"I thank you, fellow-citizens, for this magnificent 
demonstration. In so far as I represent, in my heart and 
life, the great doctrines for which you fought, I accept 
this demonstration as a tribute to my representative char- 
acter. In the strength of your hands, in the fervor of 
your hearts, in the firmness of your faith, in all thai he- 
tokens greatness of manhood and nobleness of character, 
the Republic finds its security and glory. 1 do not enter 
upon controverted questions. The time, the place, the 
situation forbid it. I respect the traditions that require 



000 THS BIOGRAPHY OF 

me to speak only of those themes which elevate us all. 
Again I thank you for the kindness and enthusiasm of 
your greeting." 

Tlu' battles of the campaign grew warmer and warmer, 
as it progressed, an 1 Republican leaders in all the States, 
• (customed to addressing the public were actively at work 
everywhere. There was uncommon enthusiasm for the 
eminent candidate. Mr. Conkling, in many speeches, in 

1 lis own State and elsewhere, spoke ably in favor of the 
R (publican party, and by his zealous championship did 
much to insure its success. Mr. Garfield won the victory 
in November, by receiving 213 electoral votes. The 
1 >emocratic candidate received 156 electoral votes. 

The result of the election gave a powerful impulse to 
the business of the country, which had poised in suspense 
for several weeks ; and the year L880 closed with evi- 
dences of increasing and permanent material prosperity in 
every part of the Republic. 

Immediately after the election, visitors of almost every 
social degree began to make pilgrimages to the home of 
the Presidenl elect, at Mentor; some to present their con- 
gratulations, Inn a giiai portion to seek for place. Gen- 
eral Garfield's daily mail soon swelled to enormous pro- 
portions. A large number of the letters were welcome 
epistles, bul these were sometimes greatly outnumbered 
by those of hungry seeders for personal gain. Finally, as 
the lili of March approached, Borne of these were actually 
addressed to the < reneral's wife and aged mother, soliciting 
their influence in behalf of the correspondent or his 
friends. All applications were filed but not answered. 

The very firsl and ra08l acceptable visitors at Mentor 
at thin time, were the faculty and students of Obcrlin 



JAMES A. 9ABFIELD. floi 

college, of both sexes, who came on the day after the 
election, merely to present their congratulations. To 

them the President elect said : 

"Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemeu ■ Thiaapon- 
taneous visit is so much more agreeable than a prepared 
one. It comes more directly from the heart of the people 
who participate, and 1 receive it aa a greater compliment 
for that reason. I do not wish to be unduly impressible 
or superstitious, but, though we have outlived the daya oi 
augurs, I think we have a right to hold some events 
as omens, and I greet this as a happy and auspicious 
omen, that the first general greeting since the event of 
yesterday is tendered to me by a venerable institution of 
leaening. The thought has been abroad in the world a 
good deal, and with reason, that there is a divorce between 
scholarship and politics. Oberlin, I believe, has never 
advocated that divorce, but there has been a sort of a clois- 
tered scholarship in the United States that has stood 
aloof from active participation in public affairs, and I am 
glad to be greeted here to-day by the active, live scholar- 
ship of Ohio, and I know of no place where scholarship 
has touched upon the nerve-centre of public intelligence 
so effectually as at Oberlin. For this reason 1 am specially 
grateful for this greeting from the faculty and students of 
Oberlin College and its venerable President. I thank you, 
ladies and gentlemen, for this visit. "Whatever the signifi- 
cance of yesterday's event may be, it will be all the more 
significant for being immediately indorsed by the scholar- 
ship and culture of my State." 

On the 23d of December, 1880, General Garfield re- 
signed his title to a seat in the Senate of the 1'nited 
States which he had not filled, having been called "up 
higher." On February 28th he set out from Mentor for 
the National capital, there to be inaugurated the twen- 



602 THE BIOGQAPHT OF 

tieth President of the United States. He travelled in a 
private Pullman car with his family, one of whom was 
his venerable mother, then eighty years of age. A com- 
mittee of citizens mel him on his arrival in Washington, 
and escorted him to the Riggs House, where he remained 
until after the inauguration. General Garfield's mother 
accepted an invitation from Mrs. Haves to take up her 
residence at the Executive Mansion until after that event. 

Friday, the 4th of March, the day appointed by 
the Constitution for the inauguration of the President, 
opened wit h menaces of a storm. Snow and ice, which, 
as the '};:;; advanced, changed into slush, covered the 
streets and avenues of the National capital. But the 
sun shining out early in the forenoon, cleared the streets 
of the eoid and slippery encumbrance, and before noon had 
dried them. 

At 10.15, the presidential party, consisting of Presi- 
dent Hayes, Presidentelect Garfield, Vice-Presidentelect 
Arthur, and Senators Bayard, Pendleton and Anthony, 
entered two carriages at the Executive Mansion and pro- 
ceeded by the AVesi gate to Pennsylvania Avenue, led by 
the < Heveland Troop. The Marine Band stationed there, 
saluted them with "Hail to the Chief."' Then the first 
division of the great procession, acting as an escort, took 
their position. It consisted of Tinted States infantry, 
cavalry and artillery, and the Naval Cadets from 
Annapolis. 

At thai time, Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol 
to the Treasury department — one mile of streel -was lit- 
erally packed with human beings of every hue and 
character; and a full hour was Bpenl in the straggle to 
gel through this swaying multitude. The avenue was 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 603 

bright with gaily flecked arches which spanned it, ami 
every building displayed one or more American flags. It. 
was a scene long to be remembered by w itnessea at favor* 
able stand-points. 

There was a select number of persons admitted to the 
Senate Chamber at the Capitol, and these only through 
passports, so the galleries, though filled, were not crowded. 
The persons who first took their places in the gallery, 
were Mrs. Hayes, Mrs. Garfield, General Garfield's 
mother, and two young girls, the daughters, respectively, 
of Mrs. Hayes and Mrs. Garfield. They were in charge 
of General Garfield's intimate friend, Major Swaim. 

The number of seats on the floor of the Senate 
Chamber had been much increased for the accommodation 
of eminent Americans and the representatives of Foreign 
Governments who might grace the occasion. The 
Senators occupied as small a place as possible, 'flic doors 
were opened a few moments before twelve (."cluck, when 
Senators Bayard, Thurman and Anthony entered, fol- 
lowed by President Hayes, President elect Garfield, and 
the members of the Cabinet. Already the Senate, the 
Supreme Court, the Diplomatic corps and Generals Sheri- 
dan and Hancock, were seated. They all arose. Very 
soon Vice-President elect Arthur entered, with Senator 
Pendleton, and took the oath of office, which was admin- 
istered by the retiring Vice-President, Wheeler. Then 
the latter declared the Senate of the Forty-sixth Congresfi 
adjourned sine die. 

Now followed the inaugural ceremonies which placed 
General Garfield in the Presidential chair. At L 2.40 the 
doors of the Rotunda were thrown ..-pen. and the mem- 
bers of the Supreme Court, escorted by Frederick Doug- 



604 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

lass (colored). Marshal of the District of Columbia. 
Tiny were habited in flowing gowns and carrying their 
hate in their hands. These were followed by the Ser- 
geant-at-arms of the Senate and two or three Senators; 
and then came the President and President elect. Gen- 
eral Garfield was greeted by lond cheers from the vast 
multitude that thronged the grounds on the east front of 
the ( 'apitol, where the inauguration ceremonies were to 
take place. 

General Gariield took a seat on the platform, Presi- 
dent Hayes on his right and Chief-Justice Waite on his 
left, Mrs. Hayes, Mrs. Garfield and General Garfield's 
mother occupied seats on the platform immediately be- 
hind the President elect, with the two little girls already 
mentioned. The oath of office was administered by Chief - 
Jnstice Waite, and when that ceremony was concluded, 
[dent Garfield turned and kissed his wife and mother 
in the presence of the immense gathering of citizens. 
This was a touching public acknowledgment of his large 
indebtedness to those two noble women for the honors he 
had received and was then receiving. Then he drew from 
his pocket his Inaugural Address and read it in a clear, 
strong voice. It was as follow c : 

" Fellow-citizens : We stand to-day upon an emi- 
nence which overlooks a hundred years of national life — 
a century crowded with perils, but cn.wned with the tri- 
umphs of liberty and law. Before continuing the onward 
march, let lis pause mi this height for a moment to 

strengthen our faith ami renew our hope by a glance at 

the pathway along which our people have traveled. It is 

now three 'lay.- re than a hundred years since the adop- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. COS 

tion of the first written Constitution of the United States 
— the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. 
The new Republic was then beset with danger on every 
hand. It had not conquered a place in the family of na- 
tions. The decisive battle of the War for Independence, 
whose centennial anniversary will soon he gratefully cele- 
brated at Yorktown, had not yet been fought. The colon- 
ists were struggling not only against the armies of a great 
nation, but against the settled opinions of mankind ; for 
the world did not then believe that the supreme authority 
of government could be safely intrusted to the guardian- 
ship of the people themselves. We cannot overestimate 
the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and 
the saving common-sense with which our fathers made 
the great experiment of self-government. When they 
found, after a short trial, that the confederacy of States 
was too weak to meet the necessity of a vigorous and ex- 
panding republic, they boldly set it aside, and in its Bteaa 
established a national union, founded directly upon the 
whole of the people, endowed with full powers of self- 
preservation and with ample authority for the accomplish- 
ment of other great objects. Under this Constitution 
boundaries of freedom have been enlarged, the founda- 
tions of order and peace have been strengthened, and the 
growth of our people in all the better elements of national 
life has vindicated the wisdom of the founders and given 
new hope to their descendants. Under the Constitution 
our people long ago made themselves Bafe against danger 
from without and secured for their mariners and flag 
equality of rights on all the seas. Undertliia < lonstitution 
twenty-five States have been added to the Union, with 
Constitutions and laws framed and enforced by their own 



606 THE BIO&RAPHY OF 

citizens to Becnre the manifold blessings of local self-gov- 
ernment. The jurisdiction of their Constitution now 
covers an area fifty times greater than that of the original 
thirteen States, and a population twenty times greater 
than that of IT-". 

"THE I'AIIAMiiINT DUTY OF THE EXECUTIVE. 

"The supreme trial of the Constitution came at last 
under the tremendous pressure of civil war. We, our- 
selves, are witnesses that the Union emerged from the 
blood and fire of that conflict purified and made stronger 
for all the beneficent purposes of good government. And 
now, at the close of this first century of growth, with the 
inspirations of its history in their hearts, our people have 
lately reviewed the condition of the nation, passed judg- 
ment npon tli c conduct and opinions of political parties, 
and have ed their will concerning the future ad- 

ministration of the Government. To interpret and to 
execute that will in accordance with the Constitution is 
the paramount duty of the Executive. 

"Even from this brief review it is manifest thai the 
nation i.~ resolutely facingto the front, resolved to employ 
its best energies in developing the great possibilities of 
Ihe future. Sacredly preserving whatever has hern 
gained to liberty and good government during the century, 
our people are determined to leave behind them all those 
bitter controversies concerning things which have been 
irrevocably settled, and the further discussion of which 

can only stir up strife and delay the onward march. 

" The BUpremacy of the nation and its laws should he 
no longer a subject of debate. That discussion which for 

half a century threatened the existence of the Union was 

clo ed al last in the high court of war, by a decree from 



./.l.i/A'N I. GARFIELD. 

which there is no appeal, that the Constitution and the 
laws made in pursuance thereof arc and shall continue to 
be the Bupreme law of the land, binding alike upon the 
States and the people. This decree does nol disturb tin- 
anatomy of the States nor interfere with any of their 
necessary rights of local self -government 3 but ii does ti\ 
ami establish the permanent supremacy of the Onion 
The will of the nation, speaking with the voice of battle 
and through the amended Constitution, has fulfilled the 
great promise of 177<> by proclaiming k liberty throughout 
the land to all the inhabitants thereof.' 

" EMANCIPATION \N1> IWKKANc EOSEMENT. 

" The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the 
full rights of citizenship is the most important political 
change we have known since the adoption of the < Jonsti- 
tution of 1787. No thoughtful man can fail to appre- 
ciate its beneficent effect upon our institutions and 
people. It has freed us from the perpetual danger of 
war and dissolution. It has added immensely to the 
moral and individual forces of our people. It lias liber- 
ated the master as well as the slave from a relation which 
wronged and enfeebled both. It lias surrendered to 
their own guardianship the manhood of more than five 
million people, and has opened to each one of them 
a career of freedom and usefulness. It has given new 
inspiration to the power of self-help in both races, by 
making labor more honorable to the one and more neces- 
sary to'the other. The influence of this force will grow 
greater, and bear rich fruit with the coming years. No 
doubt the great change has caused serious disturbance 
our Southern communities. This is to be deplored, 
though it was perhaps unavoidable. But those who re- 



608 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

sisted the change should remember that under our in- 
stitutions there was no middle ground for the negro race 
between Blavery and equal citizenship. There can be no 
permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States. 
Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long 
as the law or its administration places the smallest ob- 
stacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen. 

" The emancipated race has already made remarkable 
progress. With unquestioning devotion to the Union, 
with a patience and gentleness not born of fear, they have 
' followed the light as God gave them to see the light.' 
They are rapidly laying the material foundations of self- 
support, widening the circle of intelligence, and begin- 
ning to enjoy the blessings that gather around the homes 
of the industrious poor. They deserve the generous 
encouragement of all good men. So far as my authority 
can lawfully extend, they shall enjoy the full and equal 
protection of the Constitution and the laws. 

"freedom of the ballot must be preserved. 

" The free enjoyment of equal suffrage is still in ques- 
tion, and a frank statement of the issue may aid its 
solution. It is alleged that in many communities negro 
citizens are practically denied the freedom of the ballot, 
hi bo far as the truth of this allegation is admitted, it is 
answered thai in many places honest local government is 
impossible if the mas- of uneducated negroes are allowed 
to vote. These arc grave allegations. So far as the 
r is true, it is the only palliation that can be offered 
for opposing the freedom of tin' ballot. Bad local govern- 
ment is certainly a greal evil, which ought to be prevented, 
hut to violate the freedom and sanctity of the suffrage is 
more than an evil — it is a crime which, if persisted in, 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. COO 

will destroy the Government itself. Suicide ig qoI a 
remedy. If in other lands it be high treason to compass 
the death of a king, it should be counted u<> 1<>> :i crime 
liere to strangle our sovereign power, and stifle itfl voice. 
It has been said that unsettled questions haw no pity for 
the repose of nations. It should be said, with the utmost 
emphasis, that this question of suffrage will never give 
repose or safety to the nation until eaeh State within its 
own jurisdiction makes and keeps the ballot five and 
pure by the strong sanctions of the law. But the danger 
which arises from ignorance in the voter cannot be denied. 
It covers a field far wider than that of negro suffrage and 
the present condition of that race. It is a danger that 
lurks and hides in the sources and fountains of power in 
every State. We have no standard by which to measure 
the disaster that may be brought upon us by ignorance 
and vice in the citizens when joined to corruption and 
fraud in the suffrage. The voters of the Union who 
make and unmake Constitutions, and upon whose will 
hangs the destinies of our Government, can transmit 
supreme authority to no successor save the coming gene- 
ration of voters,who are the sole heirs of sovereign power. 
If that generation comes to its inheritance, blinded by 
ignorance and corrupted by vice, the fall of the Republic 
will be certain and remediless. 
"a question of supreme importance to tiii: bouth. 
"The census has already sounded the alarm in the 
appalling figures, which mark how dangerously high the 
tide of illiteracy has risen among our voters and their 
children. To the South, this question is of supreme im- 
portance. But the responsibility for the existence oi 
slavery did not rest upon the South alone. The nation 



r, to THE BIOQJtAPHT OF 

itself ie responsible for the extension of the suffrage, and 
is under special obligations to aid in removing the illit- 
eracy which it has added to the voting population. For 
the North and South alike, there is hut one remedy. All 
the constitutional power of the nation and of the State-, 
and all the volunteer forces of the people, should be sum- 
moned to meet this danger by the saving influence of 
universal education. It is the high privilege and sacred 
dutv of those now living to educate their successors, and 
fit them by intelligence and virtue for the inheritance 
which awaits them. In this beneficent work, sections 
and races should be forgotten, and partisanship should 
be unknown. Let our people find a new meaning in the 
Divine Oracle, which declares that * A, little child shall 
lead them,' for our little children will soon control the 
destinies of the Republic. My countrymen, we do not 
now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies 
of past generations, and fifty years hence our children 
will not be divided in their opinions concerning our con- 
troversies. They will surely bless their fathers and their 
fathers' God that the Union was preserved, that slavery 
was overthrown, and that both races were made equal 
before t lie law. We may hasten or we may retard, but 
we cannof prevent the final reconciliation. Is it oof pos- 
sible for as now to make a truce with time, by antici- 
pating and accepting its inevitable verdici i Enterprises 
of the highest importance to our moral and material well- 
being invite us, and off er ample scope for the employ- 
ment of our besl powers. Let all our \ pie, and Leaving 

behind them the battle fields of dead issues, move forward, 
and in the strength of liberty and the restored Onion, 
win the grander victories of peace, 



JAMES A. GARFIELD, 811 

"congress should preserve thi publk obedjt. 

" The prosperity which now prevails is without ;i 
parallel in our history. Fruitful seasons have done much 
to secure it, but they have not dune all. The preserva- 
tion of the public credit and the resumption of specie 
payments, so successfully attained by the administration 
of my predecessors, has enabled our people to secure the 
blessings which the seasons brought. By the experience 
of commercial nations, in all ages, it has been found that 
gold and silver afford the only safe foundation for a 
monetary system. Confusion has recently been created 
by variations in the relative value of the two metals, but 
I confidently believe that arrangements can be made 
between the leading commercial nations, which will 
secure the general use of both metals. Congress should 
provide that the compulsory coinage of silver now re- 
quired by law, may not disturb our monetary system by 
driving either metal out of circulation. If possible, such 
an adjustment should be made that the purchasing power 
of every coined dollar will be exactly equal to its debt- 
paying power in all the markets of the world. 

''The chief duty of the National Government, in con- 
nection with the currency of the country, is to coin money 
and declare its value. Grave doubts have been enter- 
tained whether or not Congress is authorized by the Con- 
stitution to make any form of paper money legal tender. 
The present issue* of United States notes has been sus- 
tained by the necessities of war, but such paper should 
depend for its value and currency upon its convenience 
in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will oi 
the holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation. These 



612 THE ItTOGIiAPUY OF 

notes arc not money, bill promises to pay money. If the 
holders demand it, the promise should be kept. 

'• The refunding of the national debt at a lower rate 
of interest should be accomplished without compelling 
tlic withdrawal of the national bank notes, and thus dis- 
turbing the business of the country. I venture to refer 
to the position i have occupied on financial questions 
during a long service in Congress, and to say that time 
ami experience bave strengthened the opinions I have so 
often expressed on these subjects. The finances of the 
Government shall suffer no detriment which it may be 
possible for my administration to prevent. 

"OUR AGRICULTURAL .VXD MANUFACTURING INTERESTS. 

'• The interests of agriculture deserve more attention 
from the Government than they have yet received. The 
farms of the United States afford homes and employment, 
for more than one-half our people, and furnish much the 
Largest part of all our exports. As the Government lights 
our coasts for the protection of mariners and the benefit 
of commerce, so it should give to the tillers of the soil 
light- of practical science ami experience. 

" Our manufacturers are rapidly making us industrially 
independent, and are opening to capital and labor new 
and profitable fields of employment. Their steady and 
healthy growth should still be maintained. Our facilities 
for transportation should be promoted by the continued 
improvement of our harbors and great interior water-ways, 
and the increase of our tonnage on the ocean. The de- 
velopment of the world's commerce has led to an argent 
demand for shortening a great sea voyage around Cape 
Horn, by constructing ship canal- or railways across the 

[sthmus which unite- the two continents, Various plana 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 618 

to this end have been suggested, and will nerd considers 
tion, but none of them have been sufficiently matured to 
warrant the United States in extending pecuniary aid. 
The subject, however, is one which will immediately en 
gage the attention of the Government, with a view to a 
thorough protection to American interests. We will urge 
no narrow policy, nor seek peculiar or exclusive privileges 
in any commercial route, but, in the language of my pre- 
decessor, I believe it to be 'the right ' and duty of the. 
.United States to assert and maintain such supervision and 
authority over any inter-oceanic canal across the Isthmus 
that connects North and South America, as will protect 
our national interests. 

" POLYGAMY SHOULD BE PROHIBIT I I >. 

"The Constitution guarantees absolute religious free- 
dom. Congress is prohibited from making any law reaped 
ing an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof. The Territories of the United States art- 
subject to the legislative authority of Congress, and hence 
the General Government is responsible for any violation 
of the Constitution in any of them. It is, therefore, a 
reproach to the Government that in the most populous of 
the Territories the constitutional guarantee is nol enjoined 
by the people, and the authority of Congress is Bel a1 
naught. The Mormon Church not only offends the moral 
sense of mankind by sanctioning polygamy, but prevents 
the administration of justice through the ordinary instru- 
mentalities of law. In my judgment it is the duty oi 
Congress, while respecting to the uttermost the conscien 
tious convictions and religious scruples of every citizen, to 
prohibit within its jurisdiction all criminal practices, and 
especially of that class which destroy the family relations 



614 Tin: BIOQBAPHY OF 

and endanger social order. Nor can any ecclesiastical or- 
ganization be safely permitted to usurp, in the smallest 
degree, the functions and powers of the National 
< rovernment. 

" THE CIVIL SERVICE. 

•• The civil service can never he placed on a satis- 
factory basis until it is regulated by law. For the good 
of the service itself, for the protection of those who are 
intrusted with the appointing power against the waste of 
time and obstruction of the public business caused by the 
inordinate pressure for place, and for the protection of 
incumbents against intrigue and wrong, I shall at the 
proper time ask Congress to fix the tenure of the minor 
offices of the several executive departments and prescribe 
the grounds upon which removals shall he made during 
terms for which incumbents have been appointed. 

"THE PURPOSE OF THE A I (MINISTRATION. 

"Finally, acting. always within the authority and limi- 
tations of the Constitution, invading neither the rights of 
the States nor the reserved rights of the people, it will be 
the purposeof my administration to maintain the author- 
ity of the nation, and in all places within its jurisdiction 
to enforce obedience to all the laws of the Union in the 
iuterests of the people; to demand rigid economy in all 
the expenditures of the Government, and to require the 

Il0ne8t and faithful service of all executive otlicers, re- 

membering that the offices were created, not for the bene- 
fit of the i i n-u 1 1 1 1 >« 1 1 1 -. or their supporters, but tor the serv- 
ice of the ( rovernment. 

•• an \rci \l. FOB t \l;\l 8T BUPPOET. 
•• And now. fellow-citizens, I am about to as.-ume the 

srreal trusl which you have committed to my hands. 1 




QPJ1YIJTG- THE LjiST TI[IE,UTE OF h. 
OUI( LjlTE ^>I(E8IQEJJT. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 617 

appeal for that earnest and thoughtful support which 
makes this Government in fact, as it is in law, a Govern- 
ment of the people. I shall greatly rely upon the wisdom 
and patriotism of Congress and of those who may share with 
mo the responsibilities and duties of administration, and 
above all, upon our efforts to promote the welfare of this 
great people and their government. I reverentially in- 
voke the support and blessings of Almighty God." 
88 



018 THE TiTOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER XXV. 

president oarfield's administration ; his assassination. 

At the close of President Garfield's Inaugural Address 
at the Capitol, the great procession of the occasion was 
first really organized for the purpose of accompanying 
the new Chief Magistrate of the nation to the Executive 
Mansion. The great body of military associations 
present, full fifteen thousand strong, was commanded by 
General "W. T. Sherman, General-in-Chief of the Armies 
of the United States. The procession was arranged iu the 
following order. First division, under command of Major- 
General R. B. Ayree, United States Army, consisted of 
twelve companies of regular artillery, four companies of 
marines, a battalion of Cleveland troops, cavalry, the 
President and party in carriages, Knights Templar, four 
platoons ; Grand Army of the Republic, eight platoons ; 
Boys in Blue, eight platoons ; Naval Cadets, two-horse 
batteries of regulars, battalion Washington Light Infan- 
try, four companies ; Colonel Moore, Company A, Fifth 
Battalion ; Second California Brigade, Hampton Cadets, 
Virginia ; Langston Guards, Norfolk, Va. ; Union Bines, 
Thomasville, Ga.; Rome Star Guards, Georgia; National 
Rifles, Washington, Captain Burnside ; Signal Corps, 
United States Army, and the Ninth Regiment of New 
York. 

Nexl came the mosi interesting feature of the procession 
— the Second division, under command of Major-General 



JAMES i QAkFItitl). 

Hartranft. It was made up entirely of Pennsylvania troops, 
whose step was firm; and it was the common remark that 
the regulars must look to their laurels. They were in the 

uniform of the United States Infantry, and carried knap- 
sacks, canteens ami rations for three days, living in 
camp. The Third division, commanded by Major-Genera) 
Thomas C. Fletcher, consisted of the Grand Army of the 
Republic, Boys in Blue and militia from New York, Dis- 
trict of Columbia. New Jersey, Delaware, < >bio, Michigan, 
Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Kai 
Missouri, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, 
and veterans from the Districtof Columbia and Pittsburg. 
The Harrisburg City Grays, the Titusville Citizens' Corjw 
and the Dickinson College and Pennsylvania Stat- I 
lege Cadets were also in this Division. 

The Fourth division, under the command of Major- 
General Charles II. Field, was composed of militia from 
Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina, Ten- 
nessee and Florida. The Fifth division, under the com- 
mand of Colonel Robert Boyd, was composed exclusively 
of civic societies, and with these marched the Philadel- 
phia political clubs. 

>- Later, on the reviewing stand the scene was a -rand 
one. Pennsylvania' Avenue, in front of the "White 
Jlouse and for several squares above and below it, when 
the head of the procession reached the Treasury Di 
ment, was literally packed with people, who had 
waiting patiently an hour or longer for the return uf 
President Garfield from the Capitol. When the car 
containing the Presidential party reached the 
era gate leading to the Executive Mansion, they 
were driven inside, and the party Boon afterward 



m TEE BIOQRAPEJ OF 

appeared upon the grand stand, extending along the 

side- walk directly in front of the mansion. President 
Garfield, accompanied by ex- Pre [dent Hayes, appeared on 
the platform, which was elevated a few feet above the 
walk, and as the latter stepped to the front he was greeted 
with loud and prolonged cheers by the swaying multitude 
in whoso presence he stood. These were in the Avenue, 
outside the grounds of the Executive Mansion through 
which tho procession passed. The Presidential party stood 
there some time, watching the long and brilliant line 
as it passed by. 

The evening of the Inauguration Day was marked by 
a grand display of fireworks of every variety of design. 
The closing pyrotechnic performance was the presentation 
of portraits of the President and Vice-President, in bril- 
liant fires of many hues. This was a scene of great 
beauty, and elicited the most enthusiastic applause. "As 
the portraits opened out in lines of silver fire," wrote an 
eye witness, " the whole background presented one great 
mass of streamers of colored fires of the most brilliant, 
and varied hues, which, together with the springing of 
mines and exploding of shells, formed a spectacle of 
Bplendor. As the stars from the last shell disappeared, 
a magnificent bouquet, like a lingo volcano, ascended, fill- 
ing the heavens with every gem known to the art. This 
terminated the best pyrotechnic display ever seen in 
Washington." This closed the open-air proceedings of 
Inauguration Day. 

The usual inauguration ball was also a brilliant affair 
It was held in a large building in Washington. An eye 
witness of the scene has left on record the following 
account of ir : 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 821 

" Upon entering, the most conspicuous decoration to 
attract tho attention was the statue of ' America, ' placed 
directly in the centre upon a iofty base, deeply banked with 
tropical plants, and holding in her left hand a shield and 
in her right hand a torch, from which a powerful electric 
light shed its brilliancy down the four wings which di- 
verge from the central nave at angles to each other. 
Cables of evergreens, relieved with rare flowers, stretched 
from the ceiling and hung in mid-air, while tho numerous 
pillars, oxtending from tho floor to tho lofty coiling, wore 
banked with flowers and evergreens, and adorned with 
shields bearing tho heraldic emblems of the several States 
and Territories, with flags, streamers, and bunting twined 
about and pendant from them. Thousands of gas-jets 
illuminated the scene, and made it one of almost match- 
less beauty. At 9 o'clock, the hour at which the Presi- 
dent was expected, it was estimated that between 3,000 
and 4,000 people had entered the building. 

"At 9.30 the Germania Orchestra, of Philadelphia, of 
one hundred pieces, announced the entrance of the 1 
dent by playing with fine effect the Inaugural March 
(composed for the occasion by John Philip Sousa). After 
being presented to the Inaugural Reception Committee in 
a body, the President and invited guests moved in pro- 
cession from the Committee's rooms, in the following or- 
dor, to the place reserved for them in the hall : President 
Garfield, attended by J. W. Thompson. President of the 
Executive Committee ; ex-President Hayes, with Hon. 
Samuel Shellabarger and Dr. Welling ; Mrs. Garfield, wife 
of the President, attended by Col. II. C. Corbin and Hon. 
A. G. Riddle ; Mrs. Garfield, mother of the President. 
attended by Hon. William Lawrence and Mr. N. II. Wil- 
la'rd ; Mrs. Hayes, attended by Hon. John B. Alley. 
After them came Vice-President Arthur, ex-Yiee-1 
dent Wheeler, General Sherman and staff, General Han- 
cock and staff, General Sheridan, General Beale, Admiral 
Kodgers, Colonel Ainger, Chief-Justice Waite and the 
Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, the Chief-Jus- 



628 THE BIOGRAPHY 

ticeand the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of 
the District of Columbia, Chief-Justice and Judges of the 
Court of Claims, ami the Inaugural I Q Committee. 

" Upon reaching the place designated, the President 
took position, and, for an hour or more, received with 
blended dignity and cordiality all who came forward to 
receive and exchange greetings. Among the first was 
General Hancock, and the unaffected cordiality on the 
part of both was noticed. Shortly before 11 o'clock the 
President and his immediate party ascended to the Presi- 
dential balcony, remaining interested witnesses of the 
brilliant seems beneath for twenty minutes or more. A 
few minntes after 11 o'clock the President, with his wife 
and mother, retired, and, proceeding to the carriage in 
waiting, were driven to the White House. Contrary to 
general expectation, the President did not take part in 
the opening dance. The promenade concert continued 
until 11 o'clock. Then the dancing began, and when the 
ball was at its height the scene was one of unusual bril- 
liancy." 

The United States Senate assembled in Special Session 
immediately after the inauguration ceremonies had closed, 
and the next day (Saturday, March 5, 1881), the President 
sent in the names of the following persons whom he 
nominated as his Cabinet Minister : 

James <i. Blaink, of Maine, for Secretary of State. 

William Wimm.m, of Minnesota. Secretary of the Treae 
ury. 

Robebt Lincoln, of Illinois, Secretary of War. 

William II. Hint, of Louisiana. Secretary of the 
Navy. 

ii .1. Kikkwood, of Iowa, Secretary of the In- 
terior. 






JAMES A. OARFIELD 028 

Thomas L. James, of New York, Postmaster-General. 
Wayne McVeagh, of Pennsylvania, Attorney-General. 

Sir. Blaine was then fifty-one years of age; Mr. 
Windom, fifty-four ; Mr. Lincoln (son of President Lin- 
coln), thirty-seven ; Mr. Hunt (a native of North Carolina), 
nearly sixty; Mr. Kirkwood, about sixty-eight; Mr. 

J amen, just fifty, and Mr. McYeagh, forty-eight. They 
were all unanimously confirmed by the Senate as Pres 
ident Garfield's Cabinet Ministers^ 

The administration of President Garfield was very 
brief — only four months. Its policy had not developed 
into definite shape in all its parts, when the President 
was stricken down by the hand of an assassin, and he lay, 
for eighty days, a patient sufferer, and then died. 

At the very beginning of the new administration, 
there was a struggle in the Senate of the United State.-. 
between the two great political parties of the nation 
(Republican and Democratic) for power in that b »dy, each 
refusing to yield on the question of completing the • 
ization, one wishing to elect new officers of that body, 
the other insisting upon keeping the old ones. Theiv was 
a dead-lock for several weeks. There was also strife con- 
cerning the confirmation of nominations made by the 
President, of incumbents of offices in the State of Nev, 
York, particularly that of the Collector of Port of Nev 
York City. The nominee for that office (Judge Robert- 
son), it was conceded, was thoroughly qualified to fill it, 
but was personally distasteful to some of the leading 
Republicans of the State of New York, and his confirma- 
tion by the Senate was vehemently opposed. 

The doctrine was asserted that the President of the 



621 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

United States, before making nominations of incumbents 
of offices, is bound to consult the representatives (especi- 
ally the Senators) from the State in which such offices are 
to be filled, and that he was obliged to defer to the 
opinions of srich representatives concerning who were 
proper persons to fill the offices. 

The President, knowing clearly his constitutional 
obligations and rights in such cases, refused to be gov- 
erned in his choice of public servants by the voices of 
politicians and political leaders, and resolved to follow the 
dictates of his own judgment, after careful investigation, 
lie felt, as in the case of the fugitive slave before men- 
tioned, that this question might as well be settled first as 
last. With this feeling, and satisfied that Judge Robert- 
son -was the proper man to till the place of Collector of 
the Port of New York, he nominated him without con- 
sulting the opinions of the Senators from the State of 
New York, as he believed he had a perfect right to do. 

This independent spirit of the President, not unex- 
pected, but startling to political disciplinarians, aroused 
the most determined opposition of those who were un- 
favorably inclined to the nomination of Judge Robertson. 
This opposition was manifest in Congress and out of it, 
and every argument which could legitimately be used was 
brought to bear upon the minds of Senators to induce 
them to reject the nomination of Judge Robertson. This 
nomination was strongly opposed by the senior Senator 
from New York, which of course he had a right to do. 

Before this battle began, a Republican caucus was 
held. An ineffectual attempt was made t<» induce the 
President to withdraw the name of Judge Robertson. 
Failing in this, iufluen ■■■ was brought to bear upon the 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Ropublican caucus, which erased that body to 
that contested nominations should lie over until the 
regular session in December, and that a nomination was 
" contested " if opposed by a single Senator from the 
State in which the nominee was to be appointed. This 
resolution proved a victory to the opponents of Judge 
Robertson, over the President, and they were highly 
gratified with the result of the caucus. But their grasp 
upon the palm of victory was soon loosened. 

True to his character for moral courage, keen fore- 
sight and his trust in the American people, the 
next morning (May 5, 1881) the President withdrew all 
the nominations for New York excepting that of Judge 
Robertson. This at once narrowed the issue to a sharp 
line. It was the signal for open war. It was begun with 
great vigor. The President was charged with insincerity, 
and even with falsehood. Some of the Senators, desiring 
peace, sought to secure it by persuading the President to 
withdraw the name of Judge Robertson. He absolutely 
refused to do so; and when told of the decision of the 
caucus, he said : " Then I will take my own course ; I am 
determined to learn who are my friends, and such as fail 
me will hereafter require a letter of introduction." 

The Senate, wearied with the contest, now refused 
to be further led by the views and the dictation of the 
opponents of Judge Robertson. Among the latter, who 
were most persistent in this opposition, were the Senators 
from New York. The whole aspect of the affair was 
suddenly changed by their resigning their seats in the 
Senate, and leaving the great State of New York unrep- 
resented in the Upper House of the National Legislature. 
This gave the majority in the Senate to the Democrats. 



8M THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

The New York Senators hastened back to lay their 
before their constituents, with a full persuasion that 
the Republican legislature, then is session, would at once 
an<l gladly vindicate their course by reappointing theni to 
the Beats in the Senate which they had just resigned. 
They published a long letter in which they detailed the 
circumstances which they thought justified them in ; 
ing, and in which the President was severely censured. 
With the vindication which a prompt reappointment would 
imply, they expected to go hack to Washington with in- 
creased power. In this matter they were disappoint 

The United Status Senate immediately confirmed the 
nomination of Judge Robertson. Instead of meeting with 
general support and sympathy in the State of New York, 
the Senators encountered much opposition, censure and 
even indignation from a large portion of their political 
associates and others. Perceiving this, they repaired to 

State eapital to further explain their course in person, 
and to secure the vindication sought. In this they failed. 
After the lapse of many weeks, during which the struggle 
in joint convention of the legislature was engaged, they 
were defeated, and their places were filled by two other 
citizen.-. '1 'lit- ex-Senators then retired to private life, and 

the excitement which the affair created soon subsided. 

The Strife at Albany had fearfully agitated the whole 
nation. The political friends and personal adherent 

ind the portion of the newspaper 
which applauded and defended them, continually, as 
is common in such cases, uttered abuse of the President 
and his a [ministration, sometimes in the form of glaring 
untruths, sometimes in low ribaldry in substance and ex- 
pression, and sometimes by solemn declarations that the 



JAMES A. OAHFIELD. 981 

President and his Cabinet were hurrying the country on, 
in ever accelerating- speed, to the verge of destruction. 

There seemed to be a rising tide of permanent and 
persistent opposition to the administration of President 
Garfield, which threatened to embarrass it much, and per- 
haps prevent the carrying out of his avowed public policy. 
But happily for the country the menacing cloud passed 
away, and the political skies became more serene. 

"While these undignified personal struggles were going 
on at Washington and Albany, the National Government, 
which was moving on in successful progress, had ratified 
important treaties ; one with China, concerning immigra- 
tion and commerce ; an extradition treaty with the United 
States of Colombia ; a Consular Convention with Italy, 
modifying and defining the judicial power of certain Con- 
sulates; a Convention with Morocco, respecting the taxation 
prerogatives of the Moorish Government, and a treaty 
with Japan, prescribing reciprocal duties for the Japanese 
and United States Governments, in case of shipwrecks up >n 
their respective coasts. On May 13th, the Senate 
poned a resolution which had been considered in February, 
asserting the "Monroe doctrine," in the case of the Isth- 
mus Ship-Canal. 

The extraordinary strife for office had continued at 
Albany until near mid-summer. The contending factions 
in the Republican party there were known as " Stalwarts," 
and " Half-breeds." The former were the friend- of the 
ex-Senators. While that struggle was at its height the 
nation was suddenly startled and appalled by the fearful 
tidings that were flashed over the land that President 
Garfield had been deliberately shot in a public plfl 
the National capital by a man who proved to be a disaj>- 



G28 Tilt: BIOGRAPHY OF 

pointed and inveterate office-seeker, having an ill-balanced 



m 



ind and having led an ill -regulated life. This event 



&■ 



occurred on the 2d of July, 1881, and produced a pro- 
found sensation of horror and sorrow everywhere. 

This sad and dreadful circumstance thrilled the public 
mind and appalled the heart of the nation, for a moment. 
It was inexplicable. There could be no reason discovered 
for the deed. When, a few hours later, the leading cir- 
cumstances of the assassination were made known, there 
was experienced great relief. There was an assurance 
that the Republic was safe. It appeared to be the work 
of a half-crazed, solitary assassin ; that there was no party, 
not even a faction back of him, and no conspiracy. 
With this assurance of faith, the public mind became 
calm. 

President Garfield had established himself and his 
family at the Elberon Hotel, at Long Branch, New Jer- 
sey, for a summer rest and quiet. He was about leaving 
the National capital to rejoin his wife for a brief tour in 
New England, and to attend the Commencement exerciser 
of Williams College, his alma mater. The President drove 
from the Executive Mansion, about nine o'clock on Sat- 
urday morning, July 2d, to the station of the Baltimore 
and Potomac Railway, in company with Mr. Blaine, the 
Secretary of State, where he was to join other members 
of his Cabinet and proceed on a trip to New York, meet 
his wife, and start thence on his brief tour in New England. 
As he was walking through the passenger rooms at the 
railway station, arm-in-arm with Mr. Blaine, two pistol 
shots were fired in quick succession from behind, and the 
President sank to the floor, bleeding profusely. 



JAMES A. 9ABFIBLD. «29 

The wounded President was convoyed to the office of 
the railway company on the second floor of the station 
building. Several physicians were soon in attendance, 
and after an hour had elapsed it was decided to remove 
him to the Executive Mansion, where lie was made as 
comfortable as possible. Only one shot had touched his 
body; that entered it through the eleventh rib, about 
four inches to the right of the spine, making an extremely 
jagged wound, and lodging within. 

The assassin was immediately arrested, and proved to 
be Charles Guiteau, an inveterate and unsuccessful appli- 
cant for office under Government, and who had Led a 
precarious existence for many years in various cities of 
the country. He said to the police officer (Kearney), 
when arrested, " I did it, and will go to jail for it. I am 
a Stalwart, and Arthur will be President." In his pocket 
was found the following letter, directed " To the White 
House " : 

"The President's tragic death was a sad necessity, 
but it will unite the Republican party and save the repub- 
lic. Life is a flimsy dream, and it matters little when one 
goes. A human life is of small Talue. During the war 
thousands of brave boys went down without a tear. I 
presume the President was a Christian, and that he will 
be happier in Paradise than here. It will he no worse for 
Mrs. Garfield, dear soul, to part with her husband this 
way than by natural death. lie is liable to go at any time 
anyway. I had no ill-will toward the President. Hifl 
death was a political necessity. 

" I am a lawyer, a theologian and a politician. I am 
a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. I was with Gen. Grant and 
the rest of our men in New York during the canvass. I 
have some papers for the press which I shall leave with 



630 THE BIOGRAPHT OF 

Byron Andrews and his co-: journalists at 1240 New York 
Avenue, where all the reporters can see them. I am going 
to the jail. Charles Guiteau." 

Mr. Andrews, to whom allusion is made in the fore- 
going letter, was the Washington correspondent of the 
Chimgo Inter-Ocean. When he heard of the affair, Mr. 
Andrews hastened to police headquarters and made a 
sworn statement to the effect that he never heard of nor 
met Guiteau until he saw him under arrest that day. A 
bulky parcel of manuscripts, addressed to Mr. Andrews 
by Guiteau, was retained by the police authorities, and 
contained a statement by the assassin, occupying twenty- 
five or thirty pages of letter paper, written in a heavy, 
coarse hand. Among the papers was the following letter 
addressed to General Sherman : 

"To Gen. Sherman: 

" I have just shot the President. I shot him several 
times as I wished him to go as easily as possible. His 
death was a political necessity. I am a lawyer, a theolo- 
gian and politician. I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts. I 
was with Gen. Grant and the rest of our men in New 
York during the canvass. I am going to jail. Please or- 
der out your troops and take possession of the jail at 
once. 

"Very respectfully, Charles Guiteau. 

" Please to deliver at once to Gen. Sherman or his 
first assistant in charge at the War Department.'-' 

The police authorities declined to make public the 
statements prepared by Guiteau. District-Attorney Cork- 
hill, who had them in his possession, produced them at 
the AVI lite Souse that afternoon, where they were read to 



JAMES A. GABFIELD. 881 

members of the Cabinet. In addition to those above in- 
ferred to, there was a letter addressed to Yiee-President 
Arthur, in which Guiteau informs him of the assassina- 
tion of President Garfield, and that he (Arthur), was by 
this act made President of the United States. Guiteau 
then proceeded to advise the Vice-President as to the 
selection of his Cabinet, and recommends Mr. Coulsburg 
for Secretary of State ; Levi P. Morton for Secretary of 
the Treasury ; Emory A. Storrs, of Chicago, for Attorney- 
General, and John A. Logan for Secretary of War. Ho 
further said, in this letter, that Postmaster-General James 
is doing so well in the Post-Office Department that Ik; 
might be retained ; that the Departments of the Xavy 
and Interior are not of much account, and it does not 
make much difference whether any change is made in 
them or not. 

United States District-Attorney Corkhill, of Wash- 
ington, afterwards furnished for publication the following 
statement, which is, undoubtedly, substantially correct : 

" The interest felt by the public in the details ol' the 
assassination, and the many stories published, justify me 
in stating that the following is a correct and accurate 
statement concerning the points to which reference is 
made: 

" The assassin, Charles Guiteau, came to Washington 
City on Sunday evening, March (>, and stopped at the Eh- 
bitt House, remaining only one day. lie then secured a 
room in another part of the city, and has boarded and 
roomed at various places, the full details of which I have. 
On Wednesday, May 18, the assassin determined to mur- 
der the President. He had neither money nor pistol at the 
time. About the last of May he went into O'Meara'a 
store, corner of Fifteentli and F streets, in this city, and 
examined some pistols, asking for the largest caliber, lie 



632 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

was shown two similar in caliber and only different in the 
price. On Wednesday, June 8, he purchased the pistol 
which he used, for which he paid $10, having in the mean- 
time borrowed IIS of a gentleman in this city on the plea 
that he wanted to pay his board bill. On the same even- 
ing, about 7 o'clock, he took the pistol and went to the 
foot of Seventeenth street and practiced firing at a board, 
firing ten shots. He then returned to his boarding-house 
and wiped the pistol dry and wrapped it in his coat, and 
waited his opportunity. 

" On Sunday morning, June 12, he was sitting in La- 
fayette park and saw the President leave for the Christian 
church, on Vermont Avenue, and he at once returned to 
his room, obtained his pistol, put it in his hip pocket, and 
followed the President to church. He entered the church, 
but found that he could not kill him there without dan- 
ger of killing some one else. He noticed that the Presi- 
dent sat near a window. After church he made an ex- 
amination of the window and found he could reach it 
without any trouble, and that from this point he could 
shoot the President through the head without killing any 
one else. 

"The following Wednesday Guiteau went to the 
church, examined the location and the window, and be- 
came satisfied he could accomplish his purpose, and he 
determined therefore to make the attempt at the church 
on the following Sunday. He learned from the papers 
that the President would leave the city on Saturday, June 
18,with Mrs. Garfield, for Long Branch. He therefore de- 
termined to meet him at the depot. He left his boarding 
place about 5 o'clock on Saturday morning, June 18, and 
went down to the river at the foot of Seventeenth street 
and lired live shots to practice his aim and be certain his 
pistol was in good order. He then went to the depot, and 
ill the ladies' waiting-room of the depot with the pis- 
tol ready when tho President's party entered. He says 
Mrs. Garfield looked so weak and frail that he had not 
the heart to shoot the President in her presence, and as 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 083 

ho knew he would have another opportunity he left the 
depot. He had previously engaged a carriage to take him 
to the jail. On Wednesday evening the President and his 
son, and I think, United States Marshal Henry, went out 
for a ride. The assassin took his pistol and followed 
them, and watched them for some time in hopes tho car- 
riage would stop ; but no opportunity was given. On 
Friday evening July l,he was sitting on the scat in the park- 
opposite the WhitoHouse,when he saw the President como 
out alone. He followed him down the Avenue to Fifteenth 
street, and then kept on the opposite side of the street 
up Fifteenth street until the President entered the resi- 
dence of Secretary Blaine. He watched at the corner of 
Mr. Morton's late residence, on the corner of Fifteenth 
and H streets, for some time, and then, afraid he would 
attract attention, he went into the alley in the rear of Mr. 
Morton's residence, examined his pistol and waited. Tho 
President and Secretary Blaine came out together, and he 
followed them over to the gate of the "White House, but 
could get no opportunity to use his weapon. 

"On the morning of Saturday, July 2, he breakfasted 
at the Riggs House about 7 o'clock. He then walked up 
into the park and sat there for an hour. He then took a 
one-horse Avenue car and rode to Sixth street ; got out 
and went into the depot and loitered around there ; had 
his shoes blacked, engaged a hackman for $2 to take him 
to the jail, went into the water-closet and took his pistol 
out of his hip pocket and unwrapped the paper from 
around it, which he had put there for the purpose of pre- 
ventingthe perspiration from the body dampening the pow- 
der ; examined the pistol carefully, tried the trigger, and 
then returned and took a seat in the ladies' waiting-room, 
and as soon as the President entered advanced behind 
him and and fired two shots. 

"These facts, I think, can bo relied upon as accurate, 
and I give them to the public to contradict certain fain- 
rumors in connection with the most atrocious of atrociowj 
crimes," 



884 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Tho wounded President was taken from the railway 
station to the Executive Mansion, accompanied by Colonel 
A. F. Rockwell, his private secretary. It was some time 
after the event before it became known in Washington, 
except to a few, what had happened. But when a car- 
riage was seen rapidly driven up Pennsylvania Avenue, 
clearing the way for the ambulance which followed, the 
startled spectators soon learned the cause of the move- 
ment, and the news spread from lip to lip over the city. 
An immense crowd was soon seen at the gate leading to 
the Executive Mansion, through which the ambulance 
had passed, and all eyes were strained with eager anxiety 
when the large form of the President, his face pallid, was 
lifted tenderly from the vehicle, and carried into the 
mansion. 

A few moments afterwards, the Cabinet Ministers and 
their wives, who were to join him in the journey to New 
York, began to arrive. Surgeons had already been sent 
for, and soon after the President's arrival at his home, he 
recovered from the nervous prostration which the assault 
had produced, and he assumed his wonted cheerfulness. 
Exceedingly anxious concerning the effect the news of 
hirf wounding might have upon Mrs. Garfield, who was 
recovering from severe illness, he turned to Colonel 
Rockwell, and dictated to him the following telegraphic 
despatch, which was immediately sent : 

" Mrs. Garfield, Elberon, Long Branch. 

" The President desirefl me to say to you, from him, 
that he has been seriously hurt, how seriously he cannot 
yet say. He is himself, and hopes you will come to him 
loon. He sends his love to you. 

*• A. F. Rockwell." 



JAMES A. 9ARFIELD 

Mi's. -Garfield left Long Branch on a special train at 
near two o'clock, p, at. When the President was told of 

her departure, he said, " God bless the little woman !" 
Owing to a slight accident on the mad, she did not arrive 
at tho bedsideof her husband until after six o'clock. Tho 
boat physicians and surgeons in Washington were in at- 
tendance upon him. Those were Drs. D. W. Bliss, J. K. 
Burns, J. J. Woodward, and R. Reyburn. "Conceal 
nothing from me, doctors," ho said, " for remember J am 
not afraid to die." Late in the afternoon, when there 
were evidences of internal hemorrhage, • he asked Dr. 
Bliss what the prospects were. The doctor replied, 
" Your condition is very critical. I do not think you can 
live many hours." The President firmly responded, 
" God's will be done, Doctor ; I am ready to go if my 
time is come." 

When Mrs. Garfield entered his room, all others re- 
tired. She remained fifteen minutes, when the surgeons 
were admitted. The President was conscious, but very 
weak ; his pulse being 146. " There is no hope for him," 
said Dr. Bliss ; " he will not probably live three hours ; 
he may die in half an hour." But he revived, and with 
it a faint hope of his ultimate recovery. 

The Vice-President, Chester A. Arthur, who would, 
in case of the President's death, immediately become 
President of the Republic in accordance with the Pro- 
visions of the National Constitution, was, at this time, at 
his home in New York city. The following correspond- 
ence by telegraph, between him and the Secretary of 
State, occurred on that eventful day : 



rt36 THE HIOQiUVUY OF 



I. 

" Washington, July 2, 1881. 
" The Hon. Chester A. Arthur, Vice-President of the 
United States, No. 123 Lexington Avenue: 
" The President of the United States was shot this 
morning by an assassin named Charles Guiteau. The 
weapon was a largo-sized revolver. The President had 
just reached the Baltimore and Potomac station at about 
9.20, intending, with a portion of his Cabinet, to leave on 
the limited express for New York. I rode in the carriage 
with him from the Executive Mansion, and was walking 
by his side when he was shot. The assassin was imme- 
diately arrested, and the President was conveyed to a 
private room in the station building and surgical aid at 
once summoned. He has now, at 10.20, been removed to 
the Executive Mansion. The surgeons are in consultation. 
They regard his wounds as very serious, but not neces- 
sarily fatal. I will keep you advised of his condition. 
His vigorous health gives strong hopes of his recovery. 
He has not lost consciousness for a moment. 

"James G. Blaine, 
"Secretary of State." 

II. 

" Washington, July 2, 1881. 
"Hon. Chester A. Arthur, Vice-President United States, 
No. 123 Lexington Avenue: 

"At this hour, 1 o'clock P.M., the President's symp- 
toms are not regarded as unfavorable, but no definite as- 
surance can be given until after the probing of the wound 
at 3 o'clock. There is strong ground fur hope, and at 
the same time the greatest anxiety as to the final results. 

"James G. B la ink, 
"Secretary of State." 



JAMES A. UARFIEl.lh 
III. 

" Executive Mansion, I 
"Washington, July 2, 1881. | 

" The Hon. Chester A. Arthur, Vice-President United 
States, No. 123 Lexington Avenue: 
" At this hour, 3.30, the symptoms of the Presid 
are not fuvoruble. Anxiety deepens. 

"James G. Blaine, 
" Secretary of State." 
IV. 
" Washington, July 2, : 
" The Hon. Chester A. Arthur, Vice-President: 

"At this hour, 6 o'clock, the condition of the Presi- 
dent is very alarming. He is losing his strength, and the 
worst may be apprehended. 

"James G. Blaine, 
" Secretary of State." 
V. 
"Executive Mansion, Washington, July 2, 188L 
V The Hon. Chester A. Arthur, Vice-President, New 
York : 
"Mrs. Garfield has just arrived, at 6.45 o'clock. The 
President was able to recognize and converse with her, 
but, in the judgment of his physicians, he is rapidly sink- 
ing. 

"James G. Blaine, 

"Secretary of State." 

In reply to Secretary Blaine, Gen. Arthur sent the 
following : 

I. 

"New York, July 2, 1881. 

"Hon. James G. Blaine, Secretary of State, Wash 
D. C: 

"Your telegram, with its deplorable nam ,; " ot 

reach me promptly, owing to my absence. 1 am pro- 



638 Till' Md&RAPltr Op 

foundly shocked at the dreadful news. The hopes you 
express relieve somewhat the horror of the first announce- 
ment. I await further intelligence with the greatest 
anxiety. Express to the President and those about him 
my great grief and sympathy, in which the whole Ameri- 
can people will join. 

" 0. A. Arthur." 
II. 

" New York, July 2, 1881. 
" TJie Hon. James G. Blaine, Secretary of /State, Wash- 
ington, D. 0. : 
" Your 6:45 telegram is very distressing. I still hope 
for more favorable tidings, and ask you to keep me advised. 
Please do not fail to express to Mrs. Garfield my deepest 
sympathy. 

•• ('. A. Arthur." 

The sad tidings were officially communicated to Eu- 
rope by Secretary Blaine, through the United States 
Minister at the British Court, by the following telegraphic 

despatch : 

" Department of State, f 
Washington, I). C, July 2. \ 
"James Russell Lowell, Minister, <&c, London: 

" The President of the United States was shot this 
morning by an assassin named Charles Guiteau. The 
weapon was a large-sized revolver. The President had 
just reached the Baltimore and Potomac station, at about 
9.20; intruding, with ft portion of his Cabinet, to leave 
on the limited express for New York. I rode in the car- 
riage with him from the Executive Mansion, and was 
walking by his sido when ho was shot. The assassin was 
immediately arrested, and the President was conveyed to 
a private room in the station building, and surgical aid at 
summoned. He has now, at 10.20, been removed to 
the Executive Mansion. The surgeons, on consultation, 
regard his wounds as very serious, though not necessarily 
fatal. His vigorous health gives strong hopes of his re- 



James a. Garfield. 

eovery. He has not lost consciousness for a moment 
Inform our Ministers in Europe. 

"James (;. Blaine, 
"Secretary of State/' 

The following responses were received on the same 

clay : 

" London, July •.'. 
"Blaine, Secretary, Washington: 

"Telegram received. Express to Mrs. Garfield the 

profound sympathy of this legation. Queen has sent to 
inquire and express solicitude. 

" LOWELL, Minister." 

III. 

EARL GRANVILLE TO MINISTER THORNTON. 

" London, July 2. — 5 P. m. 
" Thornton, Washington : 

"Is it true that President Garfield has hcen shot at ? 
If so, express at once great concern of Her Majesty's 
Government and our hope that report that he has sus- 
tained serious injury is not true. 

"Granville, 
"Foreign Office, London." 

The following are the first official bulletins, issued on 
the day of the occurrence : 

I. 

"Executive Mansion, 4 r. m. 
"The President's condition is somewhat less favorably 
evidences of internal hemorrhage being distinctly r< 
nized. Pulse, 132; temperature, 96.8 degrees — that is, 
little below normal. He suffers rather more pain, but his 
mind is perfectly clear." 

II. 
"Executive Mansion, 5.?o r. m. 
" Dr. Bliss says the President is resting moro com- 
fortably, but his condition is very critical." 



<uu THE 1U0GRAPHY OF 1 

III. 
"Executive Mansion, G.30 p. it. 
" The President is under the influence of morphine, 
and is consequently suffering much less pain than he was 

earlier in the day, but that his condition is critical in 
the extremo cannot be doubted. He will scarcely survive 
an hour unless some almost miraculous change takes place 
in his condition very soon." 

IV. 
"Executive Mansion - , 8.30 r. m. 

"The President is sleeping pleasantly and is more 
comfortable. Pulse, 128; temperature, 99.1, slightly 

above normal ; respiration 22, and more regular.'' 

V. 
"Executive Mansion, 9.20 p. it. 
"The President has rallied a little within the past 
three-quarters of an hour, and his symptoms are a little 
more favorable. He continues brave and cheerful. About 
the time he began to rally he said to Dr. Bliss, 'Doctor, 
what are the indications?' Dr. Bliss replied, 'There is 
a chance of recovery.' 'Well, then/ replied the Presi- 
dent cheerfully, 'we will take that chance.' The Presi- 
dent is still Bleeping." 

The bearing of Mrs. Garfield on this trying occasion 
won the admiration of all at the time. A writer said : 

" She displayed a strength of character wholly unex- 
pected by everybody. She exercised a self-control that 
elicited the encomiums of all by whom she was surrounded. 
After her private interview with her husband, she smn- 
moned Dr. Bliss to a private apartment, and there had a 
conference of half an hour with him. At the very start 
sho told him thai she wished to heai- nothing but the 
truth respecting her husband's condition; thai she was 
prepared for the worst, and knowing that the inevitable 
niu-t occur, she, like the President, cas prepared iii a 




VIEWING THE %EJtfjlIJTS LN GLEVELfi^ 
ELECTRIC LIGHT. 



JAME8 I. GARFIELD. 

Christian spirit to submit bp the will of God, and bear 
what ever might occur with all bhe fortitude and resig- 
nation at her command. Dr. Bliss then detailed the 
President's symptoms, and entered into a full history of 
the case from the moment the President came under bis 
treatment, which was within ten minutes of the Bhootiug. 
Mrs. Garfield listened calmly ; there was noi a tear in 
her eve. In speaking of her conduct during the inter- 
view, Dr. Bliss enthusiastically said : 'If there ever was 
a true heroine, Mrs. Garfield has proved herself one of 
the noblest, in romance or reality.'" 
24 



644 THE mOO U API I Y OF 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 

From the hour when the wounded President was taken 
into the Executive Mansion, until his removal to Long 
Branch, on the sea-shore, in September, the physicians 
and surgeons, already mentioned, were in constant attend- 
ance upon him day and night; and Mrs. Doctor Edson, a 
homoeopathic physician of Washington, was his faithful 
and efficient chief nurse, all that time. Doctors D. Hayes 
Agnew, of Philadelphia, and Frank 11. Hamilton, of New 
York, were the consulting surgeons. 

On the morning of the 4th of July, it was thought 
the President would not live until evening. Such Bad 
news was telegraphed over The land. The festivities of 
the national holiday were suspended, and the usual noisy 
demonstrations and hilarity on that occasion were sup- 
planted by silence and sadness, and deep-anxiety in every 
part of the Onion. Earnest messages of condolence and 
sympathy tor the President's family and the nation came 
from over the sea — from thrones, cabinets, corporations, 
and men in high places of honor all over the civilized 
world. 

Several times each day, the attending physicians and 
surgeons issued a bulletin giving briefly the exact con- 
dition of the President; and nearly every day Europe 
was informed of that condition by the Secretary of State, 



JAlfEB l GARFIELD. 845 

through the American Minister in London. Prayers 
ascended hourly from devoul hearts all over Christendom, 
asking for the recovery of the President, while, in his 
home, the wisdom of Bcienee and experience and tin; 
tenderest ministrations of love were exhausted in efforts 
to save the precious life. 

In England, especially, the event produced the most 
intense interest among all classes. The London Graphic, 
on July 0, said : 

"The absorbing topic of interest in England, as well 
as in America, during the past week, has been the dastard- 
ly attempt made last Saturday on the. life of the Presi- 
dent of the United States. Throughout the country, from 
all classes, and from the representatives of everj shade of 
opinion, have come expressions of horror and indignation 
at the crime, sympathy with the American people and the 
family of the President, and an ardent hope for his recov- 
ery. The various bulletins that have been flashed across 
the Atlantic have been waited for and read with the ut- 
most eagerness. The United States Minister has been 
deluged with inquiries. Among the first to send sympa- 
thetic greetings were the Queen and the Prince and Prin- 
cess of Wales. In both Houses of Parliament reference 
was made to the painful event, by the leaders of both par- 
ties. In many of the London churches and chapels the 
outrage was made last Sunday a subject of comment, ami 
special prayers were in many places offered for the recov- 
ery of the President. The Americans in London have 
uot passed so sad a Fourth of July since the year when 
Lincoln fell under the hand of his assassin. A meeting 
of Americans was held on Tuesda] evening al the Ameri- 
can Exchange, at which a resolution expressing deep sor- 
row was passed, and forwarded to Washington. I 
account, that the President is pro-rosing favorably and is 
likely to recover, has given universal relief.'* 



846 TBS BI0&BAPH7 <>P 

The President had relapses and physical complications 
from time to time, and the heats of Summer, and the 
dread of malaria-charged atmosphere at the National 
capital, made a change of place and scenery and to purer 
air, an earnestly-longed-for blessing by the sufferer and Ins 
medical attendants. At length, early in September, there 
appeared to be indications that the President was on the 
sure n>ad to recovery, and, in obedience to his own strong 
desire and the judgment of the physicians, it was deter- 
mined to take him to the sea-shore at Long Branch. 

The sudden and remarkable improvement in the 
health of the President was welcomed with a sense of re- 
lief and profound sympathy throughout the civilized 
world. With special womanly feeling Queen Victoria 
sen! congratulations to .Mrs. G-arfield, for she had watched 
with deep interest the course of events in the President's 
c.isc. Immediately on hearing of the murderous attack 
she had telegraphed from Balmoral to Minister Lowell, 
expressing the deepest concern, and desiring to be kept 
advised of the President's condition. 

The appointed day for the removal of the President 
was waited for with the greatest solicitude, for it would 
be a momentous experiment. Every necessary prepara- 
tion was carefully but speedily made. On the morningx>f 
September 6, the President was tenderly brought down 
from his bed-chamber by the hands of the physicians and 
friends, and placed, in the bed in which he had lain so 

hni-. nn a platform of an express wagon, specially pre- 
pared for the purpi «e. 

The bed was supported at both Bides upon the knees 
of the attendants. Doctor Boynton (his family physician) 
and Colonel Rockwell were at the head: General Swaim 






JAMES A. GARFIELD. 847 

and Dr. Bliss were in tbe middle, and Warren Foungand 
Colonel Corbin were at the foot. Behind stood Dr. \i< . 
burn and a number of attendants. Two colored men 

walked at the horses' heads. Slowly the wagon,- with it- 
precious burden, moved toward the railway station, where 
a car had been specially prepared for carrying the Pn ' 
dent to the sea-shore. Portions of some of the - 
were covered with sawdust to prevent jolting. Thousands 

of anxious spectators lined the route of this notabl< r- 

tege; and all stood in respectful silence, with uncovered 
heads, when the President's form passed by. Ee Mas 
placed in the car without, accident, where he was received 
by Mrs. Garfield, who immediately began fanning him. 
His family and his household were in a car behind, and 
he was left with Mrs. Garfield, the physician and two or 
three most intimate friends. The train started at aboul 
six o'clock. 

The day was one of the hottest of the season, yet the 
President made the journey without enduring much 
fatigue. Colonel Corbin, who assisted in carrying him 
from his room in the Executive Mansion to the wagon, 
and who accompanied him on the train, gave the subjoined 
interesting account of the journey : 

"The President was one of the first to be wide awake 
for the trip. After -i o'clock he would not try to sleep. 
He was anxious to go. His one slight apprehension was that 
it might be difficult to carry him downstairs, but as soonas 
that was done so easily and so safely he seemed to dismu - 
anxiety as to any part of the trip, lie was strongly DO 
on bidding good-bye to the attendants ai the White II 
but recovered himself soon. It was an evident pleasure 
to him to see the crowd on the avenue at the d< 
Their following him and their most respectful demeanor, 



THE BIOORAPEF OF 

touched him deeply. The first fifteen or twenty miles of 
the trip were madeai the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. 
The 1 'resident was delighted with his entire freedom from 
trouble of any kind, and urged a faster rate. A quicken- 
ing "i speed brought no inconvenience, and he several 
times said they could run fasteras far as he was concerned. 
He said this once or twice when the train was making 
over a mile a minute. 

"Everything was still on the line when the special train 
passed. The only noise outside of the train was in pass- 
ing stations, crossing bridges, and passing close to stand- 
ing trains, but the President did not seem to notice any 
of these things any more than on his trips when a well 
man. He seemed, however, to have a strong sense of his 
weak condition, and to realize that so long a trip in ex- 
tremely hot weather would affect a well man appreciably, 
and must, of necessity, make a severe strain on his store 
of strength, and so he urged the extreme of speed. The 
average for the journey was over fifty-five miles an hour, 
including two stops. A good part of the distance was 
run at a much more rapid rate. B} careful observations 
made l>\ several watcher.- two miles were run in fifty-five 
seconds, two in fifty-six, two in fifty-seven, and two in fifty- 
nine. A stop was made fifteen miles from "Washington to 
drese the swollen gland, and to observe the effect of bhe 
ride at thirty-five miles an hour, on the patient. He was 
found to he in good condition and improving. The rate 
of speed was found to be causing no trouble, and the 
President's wish to go faster v was gratified. The popula- 
tion along the entire line seemed t<> be watching for him. 
The small stations were crowded. There were greal masses 
;i t Wea\ Philadelphia; the occupants of farm-houses were 
on the lockout and the workmen in fields as well. There 
was a universal turning toward the train with uncovered 
he-id- There was a genera] quiei and an order thai was 
touching in 11-' manifestation of a purpose to contribute 
nothing to*the possible discomfort of the President. \t 
Trenton, where the engine stopped for coal, there was a large 



JAMES -l. GARFIELD. 049 

crowd of workmen on the platform, winch was so high tta 
to enable them to look directly in on the President. Oneoi 
the attendants pulled down the curtain near him. He al 
once asked to have it rolled up again. Baying thai these 
quiet men would not hurt him by looking in. The cur- 
tain was at once raised again. The reception was such as 
to show how deeply the President's illness has taken hold 
of all classes." 

Mr. Curtis, in ffiprper, "Editor's Easy Chair/' thus 
wrote of this journey : 

"The removal from "Washington to Long Branch was 

one of the most touching events in our history 

It was the hottest and most uncomfortable day of the 
year, the distance was more than two hundred miles, the 
traveler was a man who had been hovering for weeks 
between life and death, but who kept command <>f the 
journey; the comfort and success, and safety of the 
situation, depended upon the happy forethought and ad- 
justment of infinite details, and upon the wise concerl oi 
many men. 

"But nothing was forgotten or omitted; nothing 
faltered or failed. All went forward as had been de- 
signed, from the moment the President was lifted in the 
"White House, until he was laid down in the hong Branch 
cottage. And all this long morning, as the train -wept 
on, there arose a silent and universal prayer from millions 
of men and women all over the land : and as it darted by, 
thousands of hushed spectators, who could Bee nothing but 
the vanishing cars, stood silent, with bared heads and 
wistful hearts. jSTo such spectacle was ever seen. All this 
tenderness of affection and sympathy was not felt, 
elsewhere it might have been, for the representative <■! a 



G50 THE BIOQRAPBY OF 

house, or a family, traditionally associated, whatever the 
character of the individual person, with the renown and 
glory of a historic nation. It wasthe tribute of personal 
affection and admiration." 

The journey was accomplished in about seven hours. 
The train arrived at Long Branch, at a little past one 
o'clock in the afternoon. The Praneklyn Cottage had 
been prepared for the reception of the President and his 
familv. A temporary railway, 3,500 feet long, had been 
laid from the Btation to the cottage, close up to the porch. 
Crowds oi carriages, with spectators of the arrival, and 
a large number of pedestrians, were there, but, in this 
gathering, as elsewhere, the most respectful silence was 
observed. The President was conveyed to an upper room 
of the cottage, and placed where a window would afford 
a fine view of the sea from his bed. He showed 
paratively few symptoms of great fatigue, after the long 
journey in the intense heat. That evening the medical 
attendants issued their first bulletin at Long Branch, as 
follows : 

"Long Branch. Sept. 6, 1881, 6.30 p. m. 
"Since the last bulletin was issued, the Presidenl has 
been removed from Washington to Long Branch. Ee 
was more restless than usual lasl night, being evidently 
somewhal excited by anticipations of the journey. This 
morning, at 5.30 o'clock, his pulse was 118; temperature, 
99.8 degrees ; respiration, 18. We left Washington with 
the Presi lenl at 6.30 a. m. Owing to the admirable ar- 
rangements made by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 
and to the ingeniously arranged bed designed by Mr. T. 
\. Ely, the fatigue incident to the transportation was re- 
duced to a minimum. Nevertheless, as Was anticipated, 
Bome signs of the disturbance produced by the journey 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

have been exhibited since his arrival by rise of temperature 
and increased frequency of pulse. At present bis pulse 

is 124 ; temperature, 101.60; respiration. Is. 

" D. Hayes Agxkw. J. K. Barnes, 

Frank H. Hamilton, J. J. Woodward, 

D. W. Bliss, Robert Reybi i;\.' 

The President continued to improve, apparently, until 
he was able to sit up awhile, in an easy-chair. The way to 

permanent convalescence appeared to be assured. 11 is 
Cabinet Ministers were lodged near by, and were admitted 
to his presence. Only Dr. Bliss, of the regular attending 
surgeons in .the case, remained with him. Dr. Boynton 
(who was not in the case), and Drs. Agnew and Hamilton 
were also in attendance. 

On Friday, September 16, he had an alarming relapse. 
Chills followed at intervals until Monday, the 19th. Then 
the physicians nearly lost hope: Thatevening, at about ten 
o'clock, Dr. Bliss inquired of the President if he felt 
uncomfortable. With his usual cheerfulness, he replied, 
"Not at all." Then the doctor retired to his room ac 
the hallway, leaving General Swaim and Colonel Rock- 
well, the President's warm personal friends, alone with 
him. The President had fallen asleep; in about fifteen 
minutes be awoke, and said to General Swaim, " 1 am suf- 
fering great pain here,'' laying his hand over his heart 
"Oh! oh! Swaim !" he exclaimed. These were his la>t 
words. The doctors and Mrs. Garfield were summoned. 
He was dying, and at twenty-five minutes before eleven 
o'clock, he expired. He had struggled with death for 
eighty days, heroically, hopefully and cheerfully. 

A few minutes after the death of the President, 
sad news was sent over the Eepublic and beyond the 



652 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Back from States and Territories, and from all Europe, 
came quick responses of condolence and sympathy, From 
theQueen of England, who knew, by her own experience 
of asimilar bereavement, how to feel for Mrs.. Garfield, 
the brave, loving, hopeful wife of the President, came 
this dispatch : 

" Words cannot express the deep sympathy I feel for 
you at this terrible moment. May God support and 
comfort you, as he alone can. "The Queen. 

"Balmoral Court" 

Messages of condolence for Mrs. Garfield and the 
nation came from high dignitaries everywhere in Europe 
and America, and even from far-off Australia and New 
Zealand. The Secretary of State received from the Eng- 
ish Foreign Office the following dispatch: 

"I request you to assure Mrs. Garfield and the Gov- 
ernment of the United States of the grief with which Her 
Majesty's Government have received the announcement 
of the President's death. Parliament is not sitting, and 
[g thus prevented from giving formal expression to the 
sorrow and sympathy universally felt in the country, a 
feeling which has been deepened by the long suspense 
and by the courage, dignity, and patience shown 1>\ the 
illustrious sufferer. 

" Loud Granville, 
"Walmer Castle, England. 

"Sept. 80, 1881." 

The Queen of England and the Kings of Belgium and 
Spain ordered their respective courts to wear mourning 

For a week in honor of the illustrious dead. 

Within an hour of the President's death, the members 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 

of the Cabinet who were at Long Branch, united in Bend 
ing the following message to Vice President Arthur: 

" It becomes our painful duty to inform you of the 
death of President Garfield, and to advise you to take the 

oath of office as President of the United States, with- 
out delay. If it concurs with your judgment, we will be 
very glad if you will come here on the earliest train ;<- 
morrow morning." 

This was signed by Senators AY r indom, Hunt and 
Kirkwood, Postmaster-General James and Attorney- Gen- 
eral MacVeagh. The despatch found the Vice-Presidenl 
in his library at number 123 Lexington Avenue, \< '. 
York, in conversation with two or three friends. He de- 
termined to take the formal oath before he slept. Judge 
John I£. Brady of the Supreme Court was summoned, 
and in General Arthur's parlor he administered the oath 
at nearly two o'clock in the morning, September 20. 
President Arthur arrived at Long Branch the same day 
at about one o'clock in the afternoon, accompanied by 
Secretaries Blaine and Lincoln, who had heard of the sad 
event while on their return journey from the East. 

On the morning of the 20th, an autopsy was had, and 
the following is the official report, signed by Doctors 
Bliss, Barnes, Woodward, Keyburn, Hamilton, Agnew, 
Smith and Lamb : 

"By previous arrangement a post-mortem examination 
of the body of President Garfield was made this afternoon, 
in the presence and with the assistance of Drs. Hamilton, 
Agnew, Bliss, Barnes, Woodward, Reyburn, Andrew 11. 
Smith, of Elberon, and acting Assistant-Surgeon B. S. 
Lamb, of the Army Medical Museu'n, Washington. Tin- 
operation was performed by Dr. Lamb. B wa- fouudthat the 



654 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

ball, after fracturing the right eleventh rib, had passed 
through the spinal column in front of the spinal canal, frac- 
turing bhe body of I he first lumbar vertebr®, driving a num- 
ber of small fragments of bone into the adjacent soft parts, 
and lodging below the pancreas, about two inches and a 
half u> the left of the spine, and behind the peritoneum, 
w here it had become completely encysted. The immedi- 
ate cause of death was secondary hemorrhage from one of 
the mesenteric arteries adjoining the track of the ball, 
the blood rupturing the peritoneum, and nearly a pint 
escaping into the abdominal cavity. This hemorrhage is 
believed to have been the cause of the severe pain in the 
lower part of the chest complained of just before death. 
"An abscess cavity, six inches by four in dimensions, 
was found in the vicinity of the gall-bladder, between 
the liver and the transverse colon, which were strongly 
adherent. It did not involve the substance of the liver, 
and no communication was found between it and the 
wound. A long suppurating channel extended from the 
external wound between the loin muscles and the right 
kidney, almost to the right groin. This channel, now 
known to be due to the burrowing of pus from the 
wound, was supposed during life to have been the track 
of the ball. On an examination of the organs of the 
chest, evidences of severe bronchitis were found on both 
. with broncho-pneumonia of the lower portions of 
the right lung, and, though to a much less extent, of the 
left. The lungs contained no abscesses and the heart no 
clots. The liver was enlarged and fatty, but free from 
esses. Nor were any found on an\ other organ, ex- 
cept the left kidney, which contained near its surface a 
small abscess about one-third of an inch in diameter. In 
ving the hi.-tory of tho case in connection with the 
autopsy, it is quite evident that the different suppurating 
surfaces, and especially the fractured, spongy tissues i I 
the vertebra, furnish a sufficient explanation of the septic 
condition which existed," 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

Preparations had been made for the removal of the 
body of President Garfield to the National Capital, on 
"Wednesday morning. The body had been placed in a 
casket, which was upon a bier in the centre of a room of 
the cottage, from which all the furniture had been re- 
moved. Two crossed Sago palm leaves were laid upon it. 
A large nnmber of people had gathered about th< 
The morning was fair and cool. 

At a quarter before nine o'clock notice was given that 
the people might approach and take a last look of the re- 
mains of the deceased President. For more than an hour 
there was a solemn procession in and out of tin' chamber 
of death. At half-past nine, Chief-Justice Waite, and 
members of the Cabinet with their families and others, 
arrived in carriages and participated in the brief funeral 
ceremonies. At the request of Mrs. Garfield, the Et< v. 
Charles J. Young, of Long Branch, officiated. After 
reading from the book of Revelations, the words: 
" Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. Tea, saith 
the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their 
works do follow them," he said : 

" We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle 
were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house ool 
made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Therefore we 

are always confident, knowing that while we are at heme 
in the body we are absent from the Lord. We are i 
dent, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body 
and to be present with the Lord. For to me to live in 
Christ and die is gain. I am in a strait betwixt two, hav- 
ing a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far 
better; there the wicked cease from troubling and the 
weary are at rest. And there shall be do more d< ath, 
ther sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be an} 



658 THE BIOGRAPHY Of 

pain. And there shall he no night there, and they need 
no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God give th 
them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever. Be- 
hold, I show you a mystery. We shall all sleep, but we 
shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an 
eye, ai the last trump. For this corruptible must put on 
incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality ; 
bo when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption 
and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall 
be In ought to pass the saying that is written, death is 
swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is thy sting ! 
Oh grave, where is thy victory ! The sting of death is 
sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to 
God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. Let us pray. 

"Oh Thou who walked through the grave of Bethany, 
that open grave of the brother in Bethany ! Oh Thou 
who hadst compassion on the widow of Xain as she bore 
her beloved dead ! Oh Thou who art the same yesterday, 
to-day, and forever, in whom is no variableness nor shadow 
of turning, have mercy upon us at this hour, when our 
souls have nowhere else to fly ! But we fly to Thee. 
Thou knowest these sorrows that we bow under. Oh 
Thou God of the widow, help this stricken heart before 
Thee. Help these children and those that are not here. 
Be their father. Help her in the distant State who watch- 
ed over him in childhood. Help this Nation that is to- 
daj bleeding and In. wed before Thee. Oh ! sanctify this 
heavy chastisement to its good. Help those associated 
with him in the Government. Oh Lord, grant from the 
darkness of this oight of sorrow there may arise a better 
da] for the glory of God and the good of man. Wethank 
Thee \'<>v the record of the life that is (dosed, for its heroic 
devotion to principle. We thank Thee, Oh thou Lord, 
thai he was Thy servant, that he preached Thee, Thy noble 
life and example, ami that we can say of him now, 'Bless- 
ed are the dead who die in, the Lord, their works do fol- 
low them. I Now Lord, go with this sorrowing company 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 

in this last sad journey. Go, bear them up and strength- 
en fchem. Oh God, bring us .-ill al lasl to the morning 
that has no shadow, the borne thai has no bears, the land 
that has no death, for Christ's sake. Amen." 

The funeral train left Long Branch at a little pasl tea 
o'clock, drawn by the same engine which served the train 
that brought the President to Long Branch. It was, in- 
deed, the same train which had borne him BO Bwiftly bnl 
so tenderly from the Potomac, aero-.- the country, to the 
sea. The train reached Washington al about half-past 
four o'clock, where it was received in the same Bolemn 
silence, with the dead body of the late President, as when 
it moved away with his living form, sanctified by the bless- 
ings of the hopeful people. All heads were unco 
as the train entered the station. 

This return journey from the ocean to Washington 
was almost as remarkable as the one from Washington to 
the sea. It was more sombre. Of it an eye-witness 
wrote : 

"When the special train reached Monmouth Junction, 
it began to follow the limited express from Ne*i Y"ik. 
and was only a few minutes later. As it passed by the 
little stations between Elberon and the Junction there 
were long lines of men. women and children standing up- 
on each side of the track in silence. The drapery of 
mourning was almost everywhere to be Been. Flags were Hy- 
ing at half-mast, and festoons of black hung even from the 
roofs of great factories. In the sparsely-settled country, 
farmers and women and children were standing in the 
fields. At Princeton Junction the Btudents had c< 
the iron rails with beautiful flowers in greal profusion, 
and the bells were tolling. All along the line the | 
bad gathered to pay their last tribute of respect to the 



658 '/'///•' BTOQBAPHJ OF 

dead and silently offer sympathy bo the stricken relatives 
ami friends. At Philadelphia there were great crowds at 
every spot from which the train could he seen. The 
bridges which span the track were filled with silent people, 
and the banks by the side of the railway were thickly cov- 
ered. All were thoughtful and serious ; even the children 
were under the shadow of the Nation's loss and stood in 
silence. As the train passed on the same scenes were re- 
d. The people of the United States had abandoned 
business and pleasure, and through their ranks the dead 
body of the President was swiftly passing to the Capi- 
tol. 

" At 4.30 o'clock the bugle of Gen. Ayres, commanding 
the escort, sounded the 'assembly/ which was the signal 
of the approach of the funeral train, and before the harsh 
Qotes of the bugle had died away, the train with its som- 
bre trimmings and decorations was seen winding grace- 
fully around the curve that terminates within the depot 
Limits. Those persons who were admitted to the depot 
stood with uncovered heads as Mrs. Garfield and others 
of the late President's family and official household passed 
out to the carriages that were waiting to receive them. 

•• As soon as those who accompanied the body from 
Long Branch had Left the depot, eight non-commissioned 
officers of the Second Artillery, detailed for the purpose, 
Lifted i lie body of President Garfield from the ear and 
bore it along the platform to the main room of the depot, 
niching within a U-w feet of the spot where he fell 
when struck by tin- bullet of the assassin, and passing out 
of the cast, or Sixth street, door, deposited the coffin with 
its precious contents od the hearse, the troops presenting 
arms and the Marine Band playing ' Nearer, my God, to 
Following the body came officers of the Army and 
to the number of aboul 200, wearing the full-dress 
uniform of their respective ranks, and headed by Gen. 
Sherman ami Admiral NTichols, respectively. These offi- 
cers formed in ranks of two on each side of the bearse, 
the army officers being on the right, and the lines extend- 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 

ins for some distance behind the funeral car, "which was 
drawn by six gray horses, each horse being Led by a colon d 
groom, and grooms and horses wearing the customarj 
mourning trappings. Preceding the hearse were can 
containing President Arthur, members of the Cabinet, 
and others who were close to the late President.'' 

Everything being in readiness, the troops wheeled 
into column, the bands struck up a funeral march, and the 
procession moved down Pennsylvania Avenue with 
draped flags, muffled drums and solemn music. It passed 
around the south wing of the Capitol to the eas1 front, 
where the troops again wheeled into line, and the hearse 
and carriages drove up to the main entrance to the build- 
ing where, only a few months before, President Garfield 
was inaugurated. The coffin was borne through the 
open ranks into the Rotunda by eight United States 
artillerymen, and placed on the catafalque, which had 
been used for President Lincoln, Thaddens Stevens, Sen- 
ator Sumner, Chief-Justice Chase, and Vice-President 
Wilson. 

The body was left in the Rotunda to lie in state until 
the time appointed for its conveyance to Cleveland for 
interment. It was guarded by a detail of the Capitol 
and Metropolitan police; and resident members of the 
Army of the Cumberland acted as a guard of honor. 
That evening the Rotunda was opened and lighted, and 
several hundred people entered it to look' upon tin' face 
of the dead President. The next day this magnificent 
room was crowded from morning until nighi for the Bam 
purpose. The visitors numbered by thousands; and, a 
one time, the line seeking entrance extended a quarter oi 
a mile outside the Capitol, 



660 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

The Rotunda was heavily draped, and many floral 
decorations were strewn around the casket and upon the 
catafalque. On the casket was laid a beautiful wreath of 
great size, of white flowers, presented, by a telegraphic 
order of Queen Victoria, by a member of the British 
legation at Washington. To the wreath was attached a 
card bearing the words: 

" Queen Victoria, to the memory of the late President 
Garfield, an expression of her sorrow cmd sympathy with 

Mrs. Garfield and the American nation" 

It is related that the husband of a poor German 
woman, who had suffered a relapse in her illness through 
the excitement caused in her by the passage of President 
Garfield's funeral cortege under her window, going to 
view the remains at the Capitol, brought back to his wife 
a bud that he caught as it loosened and fell from Queen 
Victoria's lovely wreath on the casket. It bloomed by 
her bedside, disclosing a dove in the centre, and the poor 
woman, calling it the Christ-flower sent from the dead 
President to heal her, began to mend immediately. It 
was an orchid, the Espirito Santo, and as they are usu- 
ally Bold at the price of twenty dollars a blossom, it gives 

One an idea of the royal prodigality of the wreath. 

Friday, the 23d, was appointed for funeral services at 
the ('apitol, which was closed at eleven o'clock to prepare 
for them. Op to thai hour the people continued to pass 
through the Rotunda in a continuous stream to look at 
the casket, for the face of the dead Presidenl was hidden 
from view. 

After the Capitol was closed, M[rs ( Garfield, acponj 



JAMES .!. OAUFL 861 

panied by her family and some friends, drove to the 
Senate wing of the building and entered. The forir 'lour., 
of the Rotunda were closed, the guard retired, and she 
was admitted into the vast room beneath the dome of tin- 
Capitol, where she remained f'>r a brief space of time, 
alone with her dead. When she retired, General Swaim 
and Colonel Rockwell entered, closed the lid of the 
ket, and locked it forever. 

Three o'clock in (lie afternoon was the hour appointed 
for the funeral ceremonies in the Rotunda. At thai hour 
theiov... was filled with notable men and women. There 
wen- survivors of the Army of the Cumberland ; officers 
of the Army and Navy, wearing crape on their sleeves 
and sword-hilts; the diplomatic corps, their glittering 
decorations half concealed by crape ; the Chief-Justice and 
other members of the Supreme Court, and ex-Tioe 
Presidents Hamlin and Wheeler. Winn these were 
seated, ex-Presidents Grant and Hayes and President 
Arthur, with Secretary Blaine, entered, followed by nieni- 
bers of the Cabinet and their families, and were seated in 
front. The clergymen, who were to conduct the services, 
and the singers, were grouped at the head of the casket. 

At precisely three o'clock, the sweet melody and 
words of the hymn, " Asleep in Jesus." filled the 
Rotunda. At the first note, the guard of honor, twelve 
in number, withdrew. At the conclusion of the hymn. 
Rev. Dr. Rankin read a portion of the Scriptures : \l 
Isaac Evret, of the Disciples' Church (a life-long friend of 
President Garfield), offered prayer; Rev. Dr. Power, the 
pastor of the late President, addressed the gathered 
mourners, and the services dosed with prayer by 
Dr. Butler, for many years chaplain of the Houfli 



Tin: biography of 

Krpivsentatives. Dr. Power's remarks embodied a most 
feeling tribute to the memory of the illustrious dead. He 
said : 

" The cloud so long pending over the Nation has at 
tasl burst upon our heads. We sit half-crushed amid 
the ruin it has wrought. A million million prayers and 
hopes and tears, as far as human wisdom sees, were vain. 
Our loved one has passed from us. But there is relief. 
We Look away from the bo<Jy. We forego for a time the 
things that are seen ; we remember with joy his faith in 
the Son of God, whose Gospel he sometimes himself 
preached, and which he always truly loved. And we see 
light and blue sky through the cloud structure, and 
beauty instead of ruin; glory, honor, immortality, spirit- 
ual and eternal life in the place of decay and death. The 
chief glory of this man, as we think of him now, Avas his 
discipleship in the school of Christ. His attainments as 
scholar and statesman will be the theme of our orators and 
historians, and they must be worthy men to speak his 
praise worthily. But it is as a Christian that we love to 
think of him now. It was this which made his life to 
man an invaluable boon, his death to us an unspeakable 
loss, lii- eternity to himself an inheritance, incorruptible, 
undefiled, and that fadeth not away, lie was no sectarian. 
His religion was as broad as the religion of Christ. He 
was a simple Christian, bound by no sectarian ties, and 
wholly in fellowship with all pure spirits. lie was a 
Ohi'istologist, rather than a theologist. He had great 
reverence for the family ami relations. His example as 
son, husband, and father i- a glory to this Nation. Mr 
had a most kindly nature. His power over human hearts was 
deep and strong, lb- won men to him. lie had no enemies. 
The hand that Btruck him was nol the hand of his enemy, 
l)ii t the enemy of the position, the enemy of the country, the 
enemy of God. lb' sought to do right, manward ami Goa*- 
wanl. lie was a grander man than we know, lie wrought 



s 



JAMBS l. QAkFIELL. 

even in his pain a better work for the NTation than we can 
now estimate. Jlc fell at the height of bis achievement 
from any fault of his, but we may in some sense reverently 
apply to him the words spoken of bis dear Lord : • He was 
wounded for our transgressions, be was bruised for our 
iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him.' 
As the nations remember the Macedonian as Alexander 
the Great and the Grecian as Aristides bhe Just, may Dot 
this son of America be known as Garfield the Good ? 

"Our President rests; lie had joy in the glory of work 
and he loved fco talk of the leisure t bat did col come to him. 
Now he has it. This is the clay, precious b< cause of the 
service it rendered. He is a freed spirit ; absent from the 
body, he is present with the Lord. On the heights whence 
came his help he finds repose. What rest bas been his 
for these four days ? The brave spirit which cried in its 
body, 'I am tired,' is where the wicked cease from trou- 
bling and the weary are at rest. The patient bouI which 
groaned under the burden of the suffering flesh, f Oh, 
this pain !' is now in a world without pain. Spring <• 
the flowers bloom, the buds put forth, the birds 
Autumn rolls round, the birds have long since hushed 
their voices, the flowers faded and fallen away, the t 
foliage assumes a sickly, dying hue, so earthly things 
away, and what is true remains with God. The pag 
moves, the splendor of arms and the banners glitter in 
the sunlight, the music of instruments and of oratory 
swells upon the air. The cheers and praises of men re- 
sound. But the Spring and Summer pass by, and the 
Autumn sees a Nation of sad eyes and heavy hearts, and 
what is true remains of God. 'The eternal God is ova 
refuge, and underneath are the everlasting an 

At the close of the services, the floral offerii 
removed, the wreath sent by the Queen alone remainii 
the casket, with the crossed palm leaves placed there at 
Long Branch. Stout men, members of the Disciples'* hurch 



664 THE BWQRAPH7 OF 

in Washington, bore the caskel from the Rotunda to the 
hearse. It was followed by the whole company present. 
The solemn procession passed between two lines of mili- 
tary. As it emerged from the Capitol, the Marine Band, 
which was stationed immediately in front of the main 
stairway, played "Sweet By-and-bye." 

When the body had been placed in the hearse, the 
troops were wheeled into line, and the cortege moved 
slowly to funeral music toward the railway station, in the 
following order : 

" Two battalions of District of Columbia Militia, 10 com- 
panies. 
Two companies of United States .Marines. 
Four companies of the United States Second Artil- 
lery. 
Light Battery, Company A, United States Artillery. 
Grand Army of the Republic. 
Roscoe Conkling Club Boys in Blue. 
Columbia, Washington, and De Molay Commanderies, 

Knights Templar of Washington, in full regalia. 
Beauseant Commandery, Knights Templar of Balti- 
more. 
The hearse, drawn by six iron-gray horses, each led by a 
colored groom. 
"Carriages occupied by officers of the Executive Man- 
sion and their wives, relatives of the late President, Ex- 
Presidents Grant and Hayes, President Ajrthur, and Secre- 
tary Blaine; the other Cabinet ministers and their wives, 
the Diplomatic Corps, Chief -Justice Waite and Associate 
ticee Harlan. Matthews and Miller ; Senators, members 
of the House, Governors of Stales and Territories, and 
amissioners of the District of Columbia, the Judges of 
the Court of Claims, the Judiciary of the District of 
Columbia, and Judges of the United states Courts; the 
taut Seen tarn - of State. Treasury, and Interior De- 



JAMES .!. GARFIELD. B60 

partments ; the Assistant Postmasters-General, the Soli- 
citor-General, and the Assistant Attorneys-General." 

All the way to the station, the line of march un- 
packed with people. The procession reached the station 

at abont five o'clock, when flic body was placed in the 
funeral car. Fully as large a throng of people hade the 
dead President farewell as the train moved oil' on its 
journey tc Cleveland, as ever greeted a living President 
at his inauguration. 



CG6 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE FUNERAL AT CLEVELAND. 

It was after five o'clock in the afternoon on Friday, 
September 23d, when the train bearing the body of the 
late President left Washington for Cleveland, Ohio, where 
iii«' final funeral services were to be held on Monday, the 
26th, and the remains to be buried in Lake View Ceme- 
tery. The train consisted of two sections. 

The first section was composed of four cars, the second 
car from the engine being heavily draped in mbnming. 
In this reposed the body of the late President. In the 
other two care were Mrs. Grarfield, Miss Mollie Garfield, 
Col. and Mrs. Rockwell, Genera] Swaim, the Rev. Mr. 
Power- (the Pastor of the President), and members of 
the Presidential household. The second section, which 
followed immediately after the first, consisted of five cars. 
The first was a dinfng-room car, and the other three were 
occupied by Senator,- and Representatives, who went to 
Cleveland to pay the last tribute of respect to the Nation's 
deceased chief. In the second car were Senators Bayard 
of Delaware, Anthony of Rhode [aland, Camden of Wesl 
Virginia, Sherman of Ohio, Engalls of Kansas, Pugh of 
Alabama, Morgan of Alabama, Blair of New Eampshire, 
Miller of N'-w York, Serjeant-at-Arms Bright, Executive 
Clerk Peyton, Stenographei Murphy, and Deputy Ser- 
jeant-at-Arms Christy. In the third car were Senators 
Jonas of Louisiana, McMillan of Minnesota, Jones of 



./ I \fS8 A. GARFIBJ D 

Nevada, Gtarland of Arkansas, Beet of Kentucky, .lone.-, 
of Florida, Edmunds of Vermont, Kellogg of Louisiana, 
and Q-roome of Maryland. The car of the railway offi- 
cers came next, followed by two coaches, in which mem- 
bers of the House of Representatives were seated. 

The journey of this funeral train rrom Washington to 
Cleveland was as remarkable in many respect* 
from the sea-side to the National capital. Along the 
entire route — in cities, villages, hamlets and at farm- 
houses — its approach had been watched for hours h 
sunset and after nightfall, and its passage was observed 
by the people in reverent silence and uncovered heads. 
"Whenever it stopped in a city or village, it was received 
by multitudes in the same reverent maimer, and with 61 
hibitions of sorrowful emotions. 

At the Baltimore station the train was met by tht 
Mayor, Common Council and employees of Government ; 
army and navy officers ; about five hundred members of the 
Grand Army of the Republic, and a Maryland regiment, 
all wearing tokens of mourning. Fur a mile outside the 
city the margin of the railway was crowded with men. 
women and children, standing with uncovered heads and 
looking upon the train with silent wonder. When, at a 
little past nine o'clock in the evening, it approached 
Bridgeport, opposite Harrisburg, a single cannon ou an 
island in the middle of the Susquehannali broke the 
silence of the night, when the bells at Barrisburg and 
Bridgeport began to toll a funeral knell. It wa 
by a military and civic procession. 

All along the route beyond Harrisburg were similar 
demonstrations at every railway station : and as the tram 
ascended the grand range of the lofty Alleghany momh 
25 



G70 THE B10QRAP37 OF 

tains from Altoona to Cresson, between one and tliree 
o'clock in the morning, the track was guarded by moun- 
taineers and woodmen, who stood uncovered in the dark- 
ness, unable to see anything, but as nobly reverent and 
s:nl as were their brethren all over the civilized world at 
that moment. At the station at Johnstown, among the 
mountains, about three thousand people had gathered in 
the gloom and stood uncovered and silent, while the bells 
of all the churches, school-houses and engine companies 
in the borough tolled out on the night air. 

The train arrived' at Pittsburgh at nearly six o'clock 
in the morning, where it was met by fully five thousand 
citizens, the tolling of bells and the firing of minute- 
guns. The multitude here, as elsewhere, stood with heads 
bowed and uncovered. While the train was a-shifting to 
the Cleveland and Pittsburgh tracks, no one of that large 
gathering spoke above a whisper. When it passed through 
West Park, in Alleghany City, the track was lined with 
plants in bloom, sending forth the delicious early morning 
odors of thousands of fragrant blossoms. 

After the train entered Ohio, the public demonstra- 
tions of respect and sorrow were more marked, if 
possible, than elsewhere. Every house, from a log cabin 
to a fine mansion, was draped in mourning. At one 
place, in a mining region, the coal-miners appeared in 
their soiled clothes and with their lamps on their hats, just 
as they had issued from the dark caverns, and mingled 
with well-dressed men and women. Most reverent was 
their conduct, IW it was the dead 1 tody of the working- 
man's friend and champion which was passing by. 

The funeral train reached Cleveland at half-past one 
o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, September 24. The 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

artillerymen, to whom had been assigned the duty, bore 

the casket from the car to the hearse. The latter was 
guarded by forty-six veterans of General Garfield's old 
regiment, the Forty-Second Ohio Volunteers. A civic 
and military procession was formed. The hearse, covered 
with crape, was drawn by four black horses, each • ■■■■ 
with a black robe trimmed with silver, and led by a 
ored man who had performed the same office at the ob- 
sequies of President Lincoln. 

The procession passed along Euclid Avenueon its way 
to the magnificent pavilion in the public Bquare, wh 
a catafalque had been erected for the resting-place <>f the 
casket until the funeral ceremonies should be over. 
Euclid Avenue presented a most interesting aspect on that 
occasion. It is one of the finest in the world. Its broad 
roadway is fringed with stately mansions, blooming gar- 
dens and elegant shade trees. The houses were literally 
covered with symbols of mourning. Some of them were 
almost hidden in folds of black. The pillars of porticoes 
were swathed in black and white cloth. Flags at half- 
mast, with wide black borders, floated from many a lofty 
staff. All over this beautiful city, on the borders of Lake 
Erie, the business portion and the cottages of the pa 
the outskirts, were profusely clad in habiliinenti 
mourning. 

The pavilion in which lay in state the body of the 
dead President, from Saturday until Monday, was an im- 
posing structure. The floor on whieh the catafalque 
rested was forty-five feet square and five-and-a-haU 
from the ground. It was reached by an inclined | 
on the east and on the west. There were four 
arched openings on the sides, each facing a cardinal \ 



THE BI0QRAPH1 OF 

The columns at each corner were festooned with flags, 
and high over each was unfurled a large black banner. 

The interior of the pavilion was graced with many 
floral decorations, which displayed much taste aud inge- 
nuity. We may here describe only one. A light-house 
of balsams, tuberoses, begonias and geranium leaves, with 
a broad base of fern leaves and begonias, bore a shield, on 
which, in purple and immortelles, were the words : " GAR- 
FIELD -A BEACON TO POSTERITY." 

The entrance gate to the public square leading to the 
pavilion was spanned by a triple arch covered by black 
cloth. On the outer faces of the external piers were the 
names of the States of the Union on huge tablets. Before 
the outer-face of the keystone of the central arch swung 
:. ladder of white balsams, its base resting on a canal boat. 
Its rounds, beginning with the lowest, bore the following 
words : 

" Chester — Hiram — Williams — Ohio Sen a i ■ >b 
Colonel — General — Congressman — United Si mis 
Senator — Prks.dknt — Martyr." 

The readers of this volume will readily understand 
how this ladder symbolized the career of James A. Gar- 
field, in climbing the ladder of life from the lowest round 
to Hie highest. 

All day long on Sunday the 25th of September, from 
early morning until night, the people of Northern Ohi< . 
who had flocked to Cleveland from cities, villages, ham- 
lets and farm-houses, passed under that arch and through 
the pavilion to look at the black coffin on the catafalque, 

at the nit* of about seven thousand an hour, walking four 

abreast. Nor did the Btream of mourners cease to flow 

throughout the entire night. 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 

A little before 1 () o'clock on Monday morning, prepa- 
rations for the funeral services were began. Seats had 
been placed at the pavilion for the officers and representa- 
tives of the National Government and other distinguished 
persons, and back of these were scats for the di 
The funeral car, prepared to convey the body to the ceme- 
tery, was drawn into the public square by twelve spirited 
black horses, harnessed four abreast, covered with black 
robes trimmed with gold, and led by six colored grooms, 
who held the horses by black cords. The ear was a large 
platform on wheels, with a sombre canopy, rising twenty 
feet from the ground, with furled flags covered with crape 
at the corners, and decorated with black and white plumes. 

The family of the deceased President, including his 
aged mother, were present at the funeral ceremonies, 
which began at about half -past ten o'clock. They took 
seats near the coffin. Dr. J. P. Robinson, president of 
the ceremonies, announced that the services would open 
by the singing of Beethoven's funeral hymn, by the ( lleve- 
land Vocal Society, beginning : 

" Thou art gone to the grave, but we will not deplore 
thee, 
Though sorrow and darkness encompass the tonih ; 
The Saviour has passed its portals before thee, 

And the lamp of his love is thy light through the 
gloom." 

Bishop Bedel, of Ohio, read appropriate portions of 
Scripture, and Rev. Ross 0. Haughton offered a prayer. 
The Vocal Society then sang again, when the Rev. Isaac 
Evrett, of Cincinnati, of the Disciples' Church, delivered 
the following discourse: 



C74 7'///; nroGRAPnr of 

" This is a timo for mourning that has no parallel in 
tho history of the world. Death is constantly occurring 
everyday and every hour, and almost every moment some 
life expires and somewhere there are broken hearts and 
desolate homes; but we have learned to accept the un- 
avoidable, and we pause a moment and drop a tear, and 
away again to the excitements and ambitions of life, and 
forget it all. Sometimes a life is called for that plunges 
a large community in mourning, and sometimes whole 
nations mourn the loss ot a good king, or a wise statesman, 
or an eminent sage, or a great philosopher, or a philan- 
thropist, or a martyr who has laid his life upon the altar of 
truth, and won for himself an envious immortality among 
the sons of men. But there was never a mourning in all 
the world like unto this mourning. lam not speaking ex- 
travagantly when I say this, for I am told it is the result 
of calculations, carefully made from such data as are in 
possession, that certainly not less than 300,000,000 of the 
human race share in the sadness and the lamentations -and 
Borrow ;:nd mourning that belong to this occasion here 
to-day. It is a chill shadow of a fearful calamity that 
has extended itself into every home in all this land, and 
into every heart, and that has projected itself over vast 
Beafi and oceans into distant lands, and awakened the sin- 
ceresl and profoundest sympathy with us in the hearts 
of the good people of the nations, and among all people. 

"It is worth while, my friends, t" pause a moment and 

toast wii h is, doubtless, attributable in part 

to the wondrous triumphs of science and art within the 

mi century, by means <»(' which time and Bpace have 

been bo far conquered, that nations, once far distant and 

arilv alienated from each other, are brought into 



JAMES A. GARFTELD. «75 

close communication, and the various ties of commerce 
and of social interests and of religious interests bring them 
into contact of fellowship that could not have been known 
in former times. Tt is likewise, unquestionably, partly 
due to the fact that this nation of ours has grown to such 
wondrous might and power before the whole earth, and 
which is, in fact, the hope of the world in all that relate- 
to the highest civilization — that sympathy with this nation 
and respect for this great power leads to these offerings of 
condolence and expressions of sympathy and grief from 
the various nations of the earth, and because they have 
learned to respect and recognize that the Nation is Btricken 
in the fatal blow that has taken away our President from 
us. 

"And yet this will by no means account for this mar- 
vellous and world-wide sympathy of which we are speak- 
ing. Yet it cannot be attributed to mere intellectual great- 
ness, for there have been, and there are, other great men ; 
and, acknowledging all that the most enthusiastic heart 
could claim for our beloved leader, it is but fair b 
that there have been more eminent educators, there have 
been greater soldiers, there have been more skillful and 
experienced and powerful legislators and leaders of 
mighty parties and political forces. There is no one de- 
partment in which he has more eminence where the world 
may not point to others who attained higher and more 
intellectual greatness. It might not be considered more 
righteously here than in many other cases; yet. perhaps, 
it is rare in the history of nations that any one man has 
combined so much of excellence in all those variou 
partments, and who, as an educator and a lawyer and a 
legislator and a soldier and a party chieftain and ruler, ha.- 



678 THE BIOQBAPBF OF 

done so well, so thoroughly well, in all departments, and 
brought out such successful results as to inspire confidence 
and command respect and approval in every path of life in 
which la' has walked, and in every department of public 
activity which he has occupied. Yet I. think, when we 
come to a proper estimate of his character, and seek after 
the secret of this world-wide sympathy and affection, we 
shall find it rather in the richness and integrity of his 
moral nature, and in that sincerity, and in that trans- 
parent honesty, in that truthfulness that lay the basis for 
everything of greatness to which we do honor to-day. 

"I may state here what perhaps is not generally 
known as an illustration of this. When James A. Gar- 
field was yet a mere lad, in this county, a series of relig- 
ious meetings were held in one of the towns of Cuyahoga 
County, by a minister by no means attractive as an orator, 
possessing none of the graces of an orator, and marked 
Only by entire sincerity, by good reasoning powers, and 
by earnestness in seeking to win souls from sin to right- 
eousness. The lad Garfield attended these meetings for 
many nights, and after listening to the sermons night 
after night, he went one day to the minister and said to 
him : • Sir, 1 have been listening to your preaching night 
after night, and I am fully persuaded thai if these things 
you say are true, it is the duty and the highest interest of 
every man of respectability, and especially of every young 
man. to accepl that religion and seek to be a man. But, 

really. I don'1 know whether this thing is true or not. I 

can*t say thai 1 disbelieve it, but I dare nol Bay thai 1 

fully and honestly believe it. If I were sure that it was 
true. I would niu-i gladly give it my hearl and my life.' 
"So. after b long talk, the minister preached that 



JAMES I. GARFIELD. 877 

night on the text, { What ifl Truth? and proceeded to 
show that, notwithstanding all the various and conflicting 

theories and opinions in ethical science, and notwithstand- 
ing all the various and conflicting opinions in the world, 
there was one assured and eternal alliance for every 
human son! in Jesus Christ; that every bohJ was 
with Jesus Christ; that He never wonld mi-lead: that 
any young man giving Him his hand and heart, ami walk- 
ing in His pathway, would not go astray, and that, what- 
ever might be the solution of 10,000 insoluble mysteries, 
at the end of all things the man who loved Jesus < 'hrist 
and walked after the footsteps of Jesus, and realized in 
spirit and life the pure morals and the Bweet piety, was 
safe, if safety there were in the universe of God ; safe, 
whatever else were safe; safe, whatever else might prove 
unworthy and perish forever. And he seized upon it 
after due reflection, and came forward and gave his hand 
to the minister in pledge of his acceptance of the guid- 
ance of Christ for his life, and turned his hack upon the 
sins of the world forever. 

"The boy is father to the man. and that pure honesty 
and integrity, and that fearless spirit to inquire, and that 
brave surrender of all the charms of sin to conviction, of 
duty and right went with him from that boyhood thn 
out his life, and crowned him with the honors that were 
so cheerfully awarded to him from all hearts over this 
vast land. There was another thing— he passed all the 
conditions of virtuous life between the log cabin in 
Cuyahoga and the White House, and in that wonderfully 
rich and varied experience, moving np from higher to 
higher, he has ' touched every heart in all this land 
at some point or other, and he became the representative 



978 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

of all hearts and lives in this lain! ; not only the teacher 
but the representative of all virtues, for lie knew their 
wants and he knew their condition, and he established 
Legitimately the ties of brotherhood with every man with 
whom he came in contact. I take it that tins vow, lying 
at the basis of his character, this rock on which his whole 
lift- rested, followed up by the perpetual and enduring 
industry that marked his whole career, made him at once 
the honest and the capable man who invited and received 
in every act of his life the confidence and trust and love 
of all that learned to know him. 

" There is yet one other thing that I ought to men- 
tion here. There was such an admirable harmony of all 
his powers; there was such a beautiful adjustment of the 
physical, intellectual, and moral in his being; there was 
such an equitable distribution of the physical, intellectual, 
and moral forces that his nature looked out every way to 
get at sympathy with everything, and found about equal 
delight in all pursuits and all studies, so that he became, 
through his industry and honest ambition, really .encyclo- 
pedic. There was scarcely any single chord that you could 
touch to which he would not respond in a way that 
made you know that his hand had swept it skillfully long 
ago, and there was QO topic you could bring before him, 
there was no*object you could present to kim, that you 
did not wonder at the riehm>s ami fullness of information 
somehow gathered ; for his .yes were always open, and 
his heart was always open, and his brain was ever busy 
and equally interested in everything -the minute and the 
vast, the high and the low, in all classes and creeds of 
men. He thus gathered up that immense store and that 
immense variety of the most valuable and practical 



JAMES A. GARFIELD, 

knowledge that made him a man, not in one department, 

but all around, everywhere, in his whole beautiful and 
symmetrical life and character. 

"But, my friends, the solemnity of this occasion for- 
bids any further investigation in that line, any further 
details of a very remarkable life, for with these details 
you are familiar, or, if not, they will come before yon 
through various channels hereafter. It is my duty, in tin- 
presence of the dead, and in view of all the solemnities 
that rest upon us now in a solemn burial Bervice, to call 
your attention to the great lesson taught you, and by 
which we ought to become wiser, purer, and better nun. 
And I want to say, therefore, first of all, that there cornel 
a voice from the dead to this entire Nation, and not only 
to the people, but to those in places of trust, to our legis- 
lators and our Governors and our military men and our 
leaders of parties, and all classes and creeds in the Union. 
The great lesson to which I desire to call your attention 
can be expressed in a few words. James A. Garfield 
went through his whole public life without surrendering 
for a single moment his Christian integrity, his moral in- 
tegrity, or his love for the spiritual. Coming into the 
exciting conflicts of political life with a nature as capable 
as any of feeling the force of every temptation, with 
temptations to unholy ambition, with unlawful prizes 
within his reach, with every inducement to surrender all 
his religious faith and be known merely as a successful 
man of the world, from first to last he has manfully ad- 
hered to his religious convictions and found the more 
praise, and gathers in his death all the pure inspiration of 
the hope of everlasting life. 

" I am very well aware of a feeling among political men. 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

greatly shared in all over the land by those who engage in 
political life, that a man cannot afford to be a politician and 
a Christian ; that he must necessarily forego his obligations 
to God and be absorbed in the different measures of policy 
that may be necessary to enable him to achieve the de- 
sired result. Now, my friends, I call attention to this 
grand life as teaching a lesson altogether invaluable just 
at this point. I want you to look at that man. I want 
yon to think of him when, in his early manhood, he was 
so openly committed to Christ and the principles of 
the Christian religion, that he was frequently found 
among a people who allow a large liberty, occupying a 
pulpit. Yon are within a few miles of the spot where 
the great congregations gathered, when he was yet almost, 
a boy, just emerging into manhood, week after week, and 
hung upon the words that fell from his lips with wonder, 
admiration, and enthusiasm. It was when he was known 
to be occupying this position that he was invited to be- 
come a candidate for the Ohio State Senate. 

"It was with the full knowledge of all that belonged 
to him, in his Christian faith and his efforts to live a 
Christian life, that this was tendered him; and, without 
any resort t<> any dishonorable means, he was elected, and 
began his legislative career. When the country called to 
arms, when the Onion was in danger and his great heart 

leaped with enthusiasm and was filled with holiesl desire 

and ambition to render some service to his country, it re- 
quired no surrender of the dignity or nobleness of his 
Christian lite to Becure to him the honors that fell upon 
him bo thick and fast and the successes that followed each 

other BO rapidly as to make him the wonder of the world, 

though he entered upon that career wholly unacquainted 



JAMBS -I. <i\i;h'ii:i.:>. 



•with military life, and could only win his way by tlio 
honesty of his purpose and the diligence and faithfu 
with which he seized apon every opportunity to aceom 
plish the work before him. Follow him from thai time 

until he was called from the service in the field and tin- 
people of his district sent him to Congress, their hearts 
gathering about him without any effort on his part. They 
kept him there as long as he would stay, and they would 
have kept him there yet if he had said so. Be remained 
there until, by the voice of the people of this State,4ie 
was made Senator, when there were other bright and 
strong and grand names — men who were entitled to 
recognition and reward, and altogether worthy in every 
way to bear Senatorial honors. 

"Yet there were such currents of admiration and 
sympathy and trust and love coining in and centering 
from all parts of the State that the action of the Legisla- 
ture at Columbus was but the echo of the popular voice 
when, by acclamation, they gave him that place, and 
every other candidate gracefully retired. And then, 
again, when he went to Chicago to serve the interest oi 
another, when, as 1 knew, his own ambition waa fully 
satisfied, and he had received that on which his heart wad 
set, and looked with more than gladness to a path in lite 
for which he thought his entire education and culture 
had prepared him. When wearied out with every effort 
to command a majority for any candidate, the hearts o4 
that great convention turned on every side to dan 
Garfield. In spite of himself and against every feeling, 
wish, and prayer of his own heart, this honorwas crowded 
upon him, and the Nation responded with holy entllUi 
from one end of the land to the other, and in the same 



682 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

honorable way he was ducted to the chief magistracy 
under circumstances which, however great the bitterness 

of party conflict, caused all parties not only to acquiesce, 
but to feel proud in the consciousness that we had a chief 
magistrate of whom they need not be ashamed before the 
world, and unto whom they could safely confide the des- 
tinies of this mighty Nation. Now, gentlemen, let me 
say to you all, those of you occupying great places of trust 
who are here to-day, and the mass of those who are called 
upon to discharge the responsibilities of citizenship year 
by year, the most invaluable lesson that we learn from 
the life of our beloved departed President is, that not 
only is it not incompatible with success, but it is the surest 
means of success, to consecrate heart and life to that 
which is true and right, and above all question of mere 
policy, wedding the soul to truth and right, and the God 
of truth and righteousness, in holy wedlock never to be 
dissolved. I feel just at this point that we need this les- 
son. 

" This great, wondrous land of ours, this mighty Na- 
tion in its marvelous upward career, with its ever-increas- 
ing power, opening its anus to receive from all lands 
people of all Languages, all religions, and all conditions, 
and hoping iii the warm embrace of political brotherhood 
To blend them with us, to melt them into a common mass, 
needs this lesson of virtue, so that, when melted and run 

over again in a new type of manhood it will incorporate 

all the various nations of the earth in one grand brother- 
hood, presenting before the nations of the worlds specta- 
cle of freedom and Btrength and prosperity and power 
beyond anything before Known. Let me Bay the perma- 
nency of the work and its continual enlargement must 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

depend un our maintaining virtue as well as intellig 

and making dominant in all the land those principli 
pure morality that Jesus Christ has taught us. Ju 
we cling to that we are safe, and jusl as we forgel and 
depart from that we proceed toward disaster and ruin. 

"And when we see what has been accomplished in a 
mighty life like this, we have an instance o\ the power of 
truth and right which spreads from heart to heart, and from 
life to life, and from state to state, and finally from nation 
to nation, until, these pure principles reigning every where, 
God shall realize His great purpose, so long ago expn 
to us in the words of prophecy, that the kingdoms of this 
world are become the kingdoms of our God and oi hifl 
Christ; so that over the dead body of Jam"- A. Garfield 
may all the people join hands, and swear, by the Eternal 
God, that they will dismiss all unworthy purposes, and 
love and worship the true and the right, and, in the 
inspiration of the grand principles that Jesus Christ taught, 
seek to realize the grand ends to which His word of truth 
and right continually point us. 

"I cannot prolong my remark to any great extent 
There are two or three things that I must say. ho* 
before I close. There is a voice to the Church in this 
death that I cannot pause now to speak of particularly. 
There is a tenderer and more awful voice that Bpeakfl to 
the members of the family: to that sacred circle within 
which his really true life and character were better devel- 
oped and more perfectly known than anywhere else. 
What words can tell the weight of anguish that rest* upon 
the hearts of those who so dearly loved him. and Bhared 
with him the sweet sanctities of his home : the pure lite, 
the gentleness, the kindness, and the manliness thai 



884 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

vaded all his actions, and made his home a charming one 

for its Inmates, and for all that shared in its hospitalities \ 

•' It is of all things the saddest and most grievous 

now that those bound to him by the tenderest ties of the 
home circle are called to yield him to the grave ; to hear 
that roiceof love no more; to behold that manly form 
no Longer moving in the sweet circle of home; to receive 
no more the benediction from the loving hand of the 
father that rested upon the heads of his children, and 
commanded the blessings of God upon them; the dear 
old mother who realizes here to-day that her four score 
years are after all but labor and sorrow, to whom we 
owe. back of all I have spoken of, the education and 
training that made him what he was. and who has been 
led from that humble home in the wilderness side by side 
with him, in all his elevation, and assured him the triumph 
and the glory that came to him, step by step, as lie 
mounted up from high to higher, to receive the highest 
honors that the land could bestow upon him ; left behind 
him, lingering on the shore, while he has passed over to 
the other side ; what words can express the sympathy 
that is due to her, or the consolation that can strengthen 
her heart, and give her courage to bear this bitter bereave- 
ment. And the wife, who began with him in her young 
womanhood, and has bravely kept step' with him, right 
along through all his wondrous career, and who has been 
not only his wife, but his friend and his counselor through 
all their succession of prosperities and this increase of 
influence and power, and who. when the day of calamity 
came, wa "here, his ministering angel, his prophetess, 

and hi- priesteSS, when the circumstances Were such as 
to forbid ministrations from other hands, speaking to him 



JAMES A. GARFIELL. 

the words of cheer which sustained him through thai long, 
fearful struggle for life, and watching over him when his 
dying vision rested on her beloved form, and soughl 
from her eyes an answering gaze thai should speak when 

words could not be spoken, of a love that has never died, 
and that now must be immortal. 

"And the children, who have grown up to an 
when they can remember all that belonged \<> him, left 
fatherless in a world like this, yet surrounded with a 
Nation's sympathy and with a world's affection, and able 
to treasure in their hearts the grand lessons of his noble 
and wondrous life, may be assured that the ey^ of the 
Nation are upon them, and that the hearts of the people 
go out after them. While there is much to support and 
encourage, it is still a sad thing, and calls for our deepest 
sympathy, that they have lost such a father and are left to 
make their way through this rough world without his 
guiding hand or his wise counsels. But thai which makes 
this terrible to them now is just that which, as the years 
go by, will make very sweet and bright and joyous mem- 
ories to fill the coming years. By the very loss which 
they deplore, and by all the loving actions that hound 
them in blessed sympathy in the home circle, they will 
live over again ten thousand times all the sweet lite of the 
past, and though dead, he will still live with them, and 
though his tongue be dumb in the grave it will speak 
anew to them ten thousand beautiful lessons of love and 
righteousness and truth. 

"May God, in His infinite mercy, fold them in II - 
arms and bless them as they need in this hour of thick- 
darkness, and bear them safely through what remains of 
the troubles and sorrows of their earthly pilgrimage, onto 



636 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

the everlasting home where there shall be no more death 
nor crying, neither shall there be anymore pain, for the 
former things shall have forever passed away. We com- 
mit y«»u. beloved friends, to the arms and the care of the 
everlasting Father, who has promised to be the God of the 
widow and the Father of the fatherless in His holy habita- 
tion, and whoso sweet promise goes with us through all the 
dark and stormy paths of life — ' I will never leave thee 
nor forsake thee.' 

" I have discharged now the solemn covenant and 
trust reposed in me many years ago, in harmony with a 
friendship that has never known a cloud, a confidence 
that has never trembled, and a love that has never changed. 
Farewell, my friend and brother, thou hast fought a 
good fight ; thou hast finished thy course ; thou hast kept 
thy faith ; henceforth there is laid up for thee a crown of 
righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will 
give to thee in that day ; and not unto thee alone, but un- 
to all them who love His offering." 

The following hymn, which was a great favorite of 
President Garfield, and which he always requested to be 
6ung whenever he visited Hiram, was sung by the vocal 
society at the close of Dr. Evrett's discourse: 

"Ho, reapers of life's harvest, 

Why stand with rusted blade 
Until the nighi draws round you, 

And day begins to fade ? 
Why stand ye idle, waiting 

For reapers more to come ? 
The golden morn i- passing, — 

Why sit ye idle, dumb ? 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 687 

"Thrust in your sharpened sickle 

And gather in tho grain ; 
The night is fast approaching, 

And soon will come again. 
The Master calls for reapers, 

And shall he call in vain ? 
Shall sheaves lie there, nngathered, 

And waste upon the plain ? 

" Mount up the heights of wisdom 

And crush each error low, 
Keep back no words of knowledge 

That human hearts should know. 
Be faithful to thy mission 

In service of thy Lord, 
And then a golden chaplet 

Shall be thy just reward." 

The Rev. Charles S. Pomeroy, D.D., uttered the tina. 
prayer and benediction, and at a quarter before twelve 
o'clock the ceremonies at the catafalque were ended. 
Then General Barnett, the master of ceremonies, sum- 
moned the bearers (ten sergeants of artillery |, who carried 
the casket to the funeral car. The long line of can 
were soon filled ; minute guns began to fire at Lake 
Park; the bells of numerous church steeples began to 
toll, and the Marine Band of Washington played, in bIow 
measure, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." 

Yery soon the vast procession (one hundred thousand 
men in uniform, it was estimated, and an immense num- 
ber besides), with 'numerous bands playing, moved toward 
the Cemetery along Euclid Avenue. The hospitabL 
zens distributed twenty thousand sandwiches and twenty 
thousand gallons of ice-water to their guesta : and barrels 
of water were placed at intervals on the way. When the 






THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

head of the procession readied the great black arch at the 
entrance to the Cemetery, the column opened, and the 
funeral car passed within the sacred grounds. Upon the 
piers of the arch were the words: 

" lay 11i.m to bleep whom we have learned to trust, 
Lay him to sleep whom we have learned to love." 

On the key-stone were the words : 

" Come to Rest." 

In front of the vault in which the body was to be 
temporarily laid was a large black pall, under which 
evergreen sprays had been strewn. These were covered 
by roses, geraniums and immortelles, which the feminine 
school teachers of Cleveland had scattered in rich profu- 
sion. The iron gates of the vault were standing open. 
The walls within were covered with smilax and floral 
decorations of various kinds. Among them was a beauti- 
ful design contributed by the Brazilian Embassy at 
Washington. 

Only a few carriages were admitted within the 
grounds. That of the mourning family took a position 
whence the proceedings at the vault might be distinctly 
seen. None of them left the carriages excepting Mrs. 
Garfield's two young sons, for rain fell most of the time 

during the ceremonies there. 

These ceremonies, after the casket was placed in the 
vault, consisted of a brief discourse by Rev. J. II. Jones, 
chaplain of the Forty-Second Ohio regiment, commanded 
by Genera] Garfield, and the singing of a Latin ode from 
Borace and the President's favorite hymn, by the CTnited 



James i. qarfirld, 

German Singing- Society of Cleveland. A benediction 
was pronounced by President Hinsdale of Hiram Col 
and at half-past four o'clock the funeral obsequies of 
James A. Garfield were ended. He was " left alone in 
his glory." 

Very near the receiving vault, on a beautiful knoll, 
the remains of President Garfield are to be buried. I 
them it is proposed to erect a suitable monument, by 
means of a popular subscription. 



N 1 THE hlOGHAFHT OF 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

UHITEB6 -)'5!PATHT, 

Dueew the solemn funeral ceremonies at Cleveland 
the civilized "as also rendering homage to the mem- 

£ the illustrious Garfield. The mysterious agencv of 
legraph had per:, 
of the noble, patient suii-: 

watching eve. don of his heart, every respiration, 

every phase of temperature, every symptom of dan_ 
- ifety which medical science could detc t 
j of mankind on tl. 
and ou the if Touched with liv 

sympathy ; and earnest prayers, winged with profound so- 
licitude, went up from the listening nations to the throne 

It was the crv of hu- 
man brotherh ling for the salvation of a great hu- 
man never before a who 
| eetaele. 
W hen the n the tragedy a* " _-ton on July 
:.t over the land and across the sea, there was i:. 
excitement everywhere, and telegrams came to the Execn- 

-: inquiries 
and t s the household of the President 

and c 

calm f raith of the noble wife of the 

the admi: 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

of all, and every heart in the land was drawn toward 
her in tenderest sympathy. The words of the Btricken 
President when lie heard of her departure from the dis- 
tant sea-shore to hasten to his chamber, " God Bless the 
Little Woman /" stirred every heart in the land with 
deepest emotion, and called forth loving responses. < )m: 
of the most touching of these responses which gave voice 
to public feeling in America and Europe, appeared in the 
Albany (N. Y.) Evening Jov/rndl^ as follows ; 

" God Bless the Little Woman." 

" God bless you, little woman, 

In the work you have to do, 
And may His grace be with you, 

And may Ho help you through ! 
For we love you, little woman, 

With a heart so true and brave, 
Who dares to be courageous, 

In the shadow of the grave. 

" God bless you, little woman. 

With your heavy weighl of care ; 
If our hearts could give assistance, 

.Many millions would be there: 
Our hearts are beating for you, 

And responding to your orn, 
And beside your husband's bedside 

You are watching not alone. 

" For we are standing by you, 
O'er the dear one lying low, 
And we see the life-lamp flicker, 

Swinging slowly to and fro ; 
And our hearts grow weak with anguish, 

And our eyes grow wet with tears, 
Till your presence, like an angel's, 

Comes to mitigate our fear-. 



692 THE lirOGRAPIIY OF 

•• So kei p uji cheer, dear woman, 

Never falter till you're through, 
And (ioil must Burely help you, 

For the whole world asks Him to. 
You have won our love, dear woman, 

And a nation's gratitude, 
For your noble self devotion 

And heroic fortitude. 

" God save you, little woman — 

God save your husband, too ! 
God save you both unto us ! 

For we love both him and 3'ou. 
Stand by him, little woman ! 

Stand firm and brave and true ! 
And remember, little woman, 

We will always stand by you." 

We have seen how promptly Queen Victoria sent a 
tender message to Mrs. Garfield and a request to Minister 
Lowell to keep her informed as to the condition of the 
President. The English Secretary for Foreign Affairs 
I Lord Granville), and several ambassadors from European 
Governments called on Mr. Lowell with expressions of 
sympathy, a few hours after the occurrence was known ; 
and telegrams of condolence were sent to Mrs. Garfield 
and the Government, by European Courts and from M. 
Grevy, President of the French Republic. Similar tele- 
grams came from all parts of the Union. To all these the 
Secretary of State responded as follows: 

" Executive Mansion, i 
" Washington, duly 4 — 11 p.m. j 
•' To the Press: 

"On behalf of the Presidenl and Mrs. Garfield I de- 
sire to make public acknowledgment of the very numerous 




»% 



THE JUiOaWfiY JIT THE EJtfTIfJlJfCE TO 
LflKEVIEW CEJtfETEI?Y. 



JAMMS A. GARFIELD. 

messages of condolence and affection which have be< 
oeived since Saturday morning. From almost every State 
in the Union, from the South as bountifully afi from thu 
North, and from countries beyond the Bea, have come 
messages of anxious inquiry and tender words of sympathy 
in such numbers that it has been found impossible to answer 
them in detail. 1 therefore ask the newspapers to express 
for the President and Mrs. Garfield the deep gratitude 
which they feel for the devotion of their fellow-country- 
men and friends abroad in this hour of heavy affliction. 

•• James (i. Blaini:, 
" Secretary of Stair." 

The newspaper press at home and abroad, in their im- 
mediate comments on the occurrence, united in praise of 
President Garfield's character as a man, a statesman and a 
Christian. In the presence of the awful event, every voice 
uttered abhorrence of the savage and unprovoked deed, 
aud every citizen of the Republic felt that he had been 
wounded in the person of the smitten President. There 
seemed to be absolutely no motive for the assault, either 
of personal grievance, or of public consideration. The 
New York Tribune said, on the following morning : 
" There was hardly a man in this country who seemed at 
sunrise yesterday more safe from murderous assault. A 
great-hearted, loving, kindly man, whose warm and genial 
nature had made 50,000,000 of people his personal friends. 
President Garlield was immeasurably more popular 
terday than he was when the ballots of the Natiou made 
him its President. The party which he had defeated had 
learned to admire and love him. His political friends 
were thrilled with pride when they saw that he had 
ready accomplished in only four months more than other 
Presidents in four years of service. It was felt by friends 
26 



. BIO&RAP&¥ oy 

and foes that he was one of the ablest Presidents eve? 

chosen, and the country looked forward with great hope 
to the grand work to be done by bucIi a President during 
the rest of a term but just !>egun. And yet to-day the 
■whole Nation bows in sorrow. The noble President, the 
statesman whose deeds have already honored the Nation 
throughout the world, the genial friend, the tender hus- 
band, and loving father, lias fallen by the shot of an 
assassin. There was no personal quarrel. It docs not 
appear that the victim had ever known or seen his assail- 
ant. There is absolutely nothing to account for this 
horrible deed, which, to a great Nation, id a terrible 
calamity, except a crazy spirit of faction." 

The Boston Traveller said: '"It is unutterably shame- 
ful and inexpressibly sad. Every friend of reaction, 
every enemy of liberty, every champion of strong, abso- 
lute government will take encouragement from this in- 
iquitous deed. It is a plea for the rule of the Romanoffs 
and the Bonapartes, presented at the bar of history from 
the land of George Washington. Every citizen of the 
Republic will feel to-day the hot blush of Bhame on his 
face, and a deep sense of irreparable wrong at his heart. 
It is a crime utterly without excuse- -evil, base, and 
damnable. Words will wholly fail to give expression to 
the feelings that will crowd for utterance from every 
honest heart. As the news of this outrage upon the hu- 
man race speeds from one branch to another of the family 
of nations, they can but sit in silence and nurse the bitter 
wrath which they cannot hope to adequate . i xpress." 

The Lon. Ion Post, «>n July 4, said : " No event has so 
profoundly moved the English nation for many years, not 
excepting the assassination of the Czar, as the attempt 



JAMES A. &ARFIELD. 

upon the life of President Garfield. We venture I 

that not only in England, but wherever the English lan- 
guage is spoken, the sad tidings have fallen with all the 
farce of a domestic calamity. AVe hope Mr. Garfield 
may be spared to discharge the duties of his proud oilier, 
but we cannot banish the feelings awakened by the grav- 
est apprehensions. The crime is apparently motiveless 
and purposeless. Mr. Garfield has done nothing to pro- 
voke that political animosity which so frequently furnishes 
excuse for regicide. "We fail to see how the murder of 
the President can serve the ends of any political party. We 
may be permitted to hope that with Mr. Garfield's excel 
lent constitution he will steadily recover. It is tnexj 
ibly saddening to think that by the act of a miserable idiot 
the President of a mighty Republic and the nominal ruler 
of millions of the most intelligent and industrious people 
should be laid at death's door, the machinery of a conti- 
nent momentarilj T paralyzed, and possibly two States on 
opposite sides of the Atlantic plunged into mourning." 

The London Daily ^'eics, on July 4, said : " It g 
us the liveliest satisfaction to be able to announce that 
there is now every hope of Mr. Garfield's recovery. The 
utmost sympathy will be felt throughout England with 
Mrs. Garfield and the people of America in the grievous 
misfortune which has befallen them. The Queen has 
given fitting expression to this sympathy by the dispatch 
of telegrams to Mr. and Mrs. Garfield. The former has 
won the general respect of friend and foe. If Mr. 
field recovers the satisfaction of the English people will 
be deep, genuine, and universal."' 

The London Telegraph, on July 4th, said: " America 
will find that this cancer of place-huuting must be cut 



THE &I0QRAPH1 01 

out or it will eat away the healthy life of the bock politic. 
We yrap thizi ■'. the American Nation from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific, who, but for the mercy of Provi- 
dence, might at this moment mourn beside the death-bed 
of their elected chief. We are brethren in the heritage 
of freedom and genius, and as brothers we oiler them the 
comfort of brotherly love. The banners they like to set 
fluttering on the Fourth of July will droop from their 
poles to-day or lie furled. What more can be said than 
that the British nation, clasping a brother's hand, bids 
America be of good cheer and good hope. Meanwhile, 
desire joins with duty to hope and pray that Garfield's 
illustrious life may be spared to his country and the 
world." 

The London Standard of July 4, said : " Indignation, 
sympathy, and the emotions of hope and fear have been 
as strong and vivid here as in America, and when the 
news was received that President Garfield was better the 
feeling of thankfulness was as hearty and sincere as it 
was universal, from the Queen down to her humblest sub- 
ject. The circumstances of the outrage, and the period 
of its occurrence, intensify the feelings of detestation and 
abhorrence which the new.- would at any time have 
excip 

A despatch from Vienna, Sunday, July 3, said : " Many 
prominent persons and almost all the foreign reprc 

to express condolence on 
account of the attempt upon the life of Presided < Garfield. 
The newspapers without exception condemn the deed." 

A despatch from Paris on the same day, said: li All 
the journals of all parti emn the attempt 

sinutc President Garfield. -ideut and Minister of 



JAMES iFIELD. 






Foreign Affairs have both tel< 
to Washington. Prayers w< re Baid for President 
ia the two American churches and .ill the English ! 
gelical churches in Paris to-day." 

A despatch from Rome the 
Mancini, Minister of Foreign Affairs, has expn 
dolence to Minister Marsh, on behalf of the [l 
Government." 

Sir Moses Montefiore, a distinguished I Jew, 

now ninety-seven years of age, telegraphed a requ< 
Palestine for prayers f or President Garfield in the 
gogues of the four holy cities. 

From other parts of Europe; from Mexico and South 
America; from Australia and the islands of the sea, fame, 
also, words of condolence at first, and congratnlations 
afterwards, when it was hoped the President migl 
cover. The civilized world watched the osely 

as if the victim was every man and woman's brother. ' '•. 
July 21, Mr. Gladstone, the English Premier, wroti 
following letter to Mrs. Garfield : 

"London, July 81 x , 1 
"Dear Madam: You will, I am - 
though a personal stranger, for addressing you by I 
to convey to you the assurance of my own feelings 
those of my countrymen on th< 
hie attempt to murder the President of tHe I'm 
—in a form more palpable, at least, than tl. 
conveyed by telegraph. Those feelings hav( 
in the first instance of sympathy and afterward 
thankfulness almost comparable, and 1 venture to say only 
second, to the strong emotions of the 
which he is the appointed bead. Individually I hai 
me beg you to believe, had my full share in I 



700 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

ments which have possessed the British Nation. They 
have been prompted and quickened largely by what I ven- 
ture to think by the ever growing sense of harmony and 
mutual respect and affection between the two countries 
and of a relationship which from year to year becomes 
more and more a practical bond of union between us, but 
they have also drawn much of their strength from a cor- 
dial admiration of the simple heroism which has marked 
the personal conduct of the President, for we have not yet 
wholly lost the capacity of appreciating such an example 
of Christian faith and maul}- fortitude This exemplary 
picture has been made complete by your own contribution 
to its noble and touching features, on which I only for- 
bear to dwell because I am directly addressing you. 1 
beg to have my respectful compliments and congratula- 
tions conveyed to the President, ami to remain., dear 
madam, with great esteem, your most faithful servant, 

'• William E. Gladstone." 

In reply to this Secretary Blaine tegraphed as follows : 

" Lowell, Minister^ London. 

" Washington, July 22, 1881. 
" 1 have laid before .Mrs. Garfield the note of Mr. 
Gladstone. 1 am requested by her to say that among the 
many thousand manifestation- of interest and expressions 
of sympathy which have reached her none has more deeply 
touched her heart than the kind words of Ml", Gladstone. 
His own solicitude and condolence are received with grati- 
tude. Put far beyond this she recognizes that Mv. Gladstone 
rightfully .-peaks for the people of tile British Pies, whose 
sympathy in this National ami personal affliction has been 
as quick and sincere as that of her own countrymen. Her 
chief pleasure in Mi'. Gladstone's cordial letter is found in 
the euinfort which it bring- to her husband. The Presi- 
dciit cheered and solaced on hi.- painful and wears v\ay 
to health by the many no sympathy which in his 



JAMES -i. (i.xuru i :• 

returning .strength he safely receives and mo.it gratefully 
appreciates. " Blaine, 

" >'< i rct'inj." 

At the middle of September a beautiful picture 
young woman at prayer, by Thomas Nast, appeared in 
Ilaiyers Weekly, with the following poem, entitled : 

"God Save tue President. 

" Oh, Lord of Lifo, before Thy throne. 

Thy sorrowing children bend the knee; 
They lift their fervent prayer to Thee, 
For Thou canst save and Thou alone. 

" In every clime, in every tongue 

Wherein Thy children learn to pray, 
Rise strong petitions, day by day 
From hearts with fear and sorrow wrung. 

" Fount of Mercy, unrestrained, 

Send forth Thy gracious healing power, 
And grant that in this anxious hour, 
The bitter cup may pass undrained. 

" Wilt Thou not hear, and hearing grant. 
The world's, the stricken nation's pl< 
That all our sorrowing prayers may bo 
Changed to a glad thanksgiving chant ?" 

The fair promises of recovery which the successful 
removal of the President to the Bea-shore, and hi 
parent convalescence, gave for many days, and the 
ful bulletins from the sick chamber, inspired 
fidence that the announcement of the President 
on the night of the IDthof September, produced a 
severe shock at home and abroad. In ever) i 



?••' THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

the United States the deepest sorrow was felt and ex- 
pressed ; and in all parts of Europe, especially in Eng- 
land, there was exhibited the most marked demonstrations 
of grief, and sympathy for the bereaved family of the 
President and for the nation. 

In Harper's Weekly appeared another touching pic- 
ture, by Nast, of the same young woman, with her head 
bowed in grief, and the following little poem, entitled : 

"After all. 

" Despite the prayers and tears and earnest pleading, 
And piteous protests o'er a hero's fall ; 
Despite the hopeful signs our hearts misleading, 
Death cometh after all ! 

" Over the brightest scenes are clouds descending ; 
The flame soars highest ere its deepest fall ; 
The glorious day has all too swift an ending, 
Night cometh after all ! 

" O'er bloom or beauty now in our possession, 
Is seen the shadow of the funeral pall ; 
Though Love and Life make tearful intercession, 
Death cometh after all !" 

In various parts of England, bells of parish churches 
were tolled — an unprecedented tribute to a foreign chief 
magistrate. Municipal bodies passed resolutions of con- 
dolence. A mourning flag was hoisted on Manchester 
Cathedral. The Queen, as we have observed, ordered the 
Court to wear mourning for a week, from the 21st. 
Letters and telegrams of sympathy wen; sent by Mayors 
of cities and other civil officers. So. also, did Prince 
Teck, and the Lord Provo I of Edinburgh. The London 



JAMES A. G A Ul' 1 1 

Times devoted eleven columns to news concerning t 1 1 < > 

death of the President. The Times said : " The death 
of President Garfield ia regarded as hardly less than a 
national calamity, In all ranks, from Queen to pej 
there is the most heartfelt sympathy for the ben 
widow and the injured Nation. The career o^ President 
Garfield is of the kind which appeals to the beet feelings 
and most cherished traditions of our people. His early 
poverty, his manful independence, his hard-won attain- 
ments, his integrity of character, had all caused his c 
to be watched as that of a man of exceptional powers and 
brilliant promise, and he was regarded as standing out 
very distinctly from among the majority of politician.-. 
Even among Russian Nihilists, Guiteaw's crime will ex- 
cite nothing but loathing and execration." 

The ZW/// Nt vws said : "In this melancholy crisia all 
Englishmen will feel for their kinsmen beyond the A.t- 
lantic. They will comprehend better than any nation in 
which self-government is less fully developed how _ 
if not irreparable, is the loss of one whom his countrymen 
but a few short months ago elected to be.ehief magistr 
the American Republic. Before he has had time to do 
more than show that he had in him the promise of a real 
statesman and genuine leader he has been numbered with 
the many illustrious men who have preceded him. Apart 
altogether from politics, and even from national int. 
this terrible catastrophe cannot but appeal to the comni< n 
feelings of humanity."' 

The Liverpool Cow*U r headed an article " The Martyr 
President,*' and said : " We consider the most appropriate 
comfort to the American people are the words of Mr. 
Garfield's own speech delivered on the death of Lincoln, 



704 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

and concluding, ' The Government at Washington still 
lives.' "' The Liverpool Post said: "The man dies not 
in vain round whose death-bed are buried all dissensions. 
People's misgivings relative to Gnen. Arthur are probably 
unjust to him, and certainly underestimate the good sense 
with which American public opinion uniformly control 
the Executive." 

On the 23d, Mr. Tennyson, the English poet laureate, 
wrote Minister Lowell : " We heard yesterday that the 
President was gone. We had watched with much admi- 
ration his fortitude and, not without hope, the fluctuations 
of his health these many days. Now we almost seem to 
have lost a personal friend. He was a good man and a 
noble. Accept from me and my wife and family assur- 
ances of heartfelt sympathy for Mrs. Garfield, for yourself, 
and for your country." 

Col. Poulett Cameron telegraphed from Cheltenham 
as follows : " The veteran soldiers and sailors here, includ- 
ing a few survivors of Trafalgar and Waterloo, earnestly 
solicit the American Minister to convey to Mrs. Garfield 
their deep and earnest sympathy and their regret for the 
good and gallant soldier she has lost." 

The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote to Mr. Lowell on 
the death of President Garfield, as follows ; 

" Addington Park. 
"My Dear Sir: I have just returned from the formal 
opening and adjourning of the Convocation of the Prov- 
ince of Canterbury. The nature of our proceedings at 
this period of the year has precluded the possibility of 
any resolution being proposed, but I feel confident that, 
had the Convocation been actually in session, my brethren 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 700 

of the episcopate, as well as the representatives of the 
clergy in our lower house, would have joined me in the 
expression of that heartfelt sympathy with the people of 
the United States, which I now beg leave, through you, 
to offer in my own name and, I think I may say, in the 
name of -the Church of England, on the occasion of the 
sad loss sustained by the death of President Garfield. 
Trusting you will kindly make known both to the late 
President's family and to the Government of the CTnited 
States this feeling entertained by the Church which I may 
claim to represent, I have the honor to be your obedient, 
faithful servant." 

"When it was known that Monday, the 26th, was the 
day appointed for the public funeral services in America, 
English newspapers of ever}' shade of opinion suggested 
that the day should be signalized in Britain by some sort 
of national mourning. They advised that the shops in 
cities should be partially closed, and that the people should 
wear crape on their arms, and exhibit other tokens 
of mourning. This advice was heeded all over the King- 
dom, especially in the larger cities, among all classes. 
Laboring men as well as titled citizens were seen with 
mourning symbols of some kind : and in London and Liv- 
erpool, the cabmen draped their whips in black and white 
muslin. At a house in a leading thoroughfare in Loudon. 
a portrait of President Garfield was displayed on the day 
of the funeral, with the words : " To one of Nature's 
noblemen, a great uncrowned monarch, second to none 
on earth." 

Americans, everywhere, in Great Britain and on the 
Continent, assembled for mutual expressions of sympathy. 



TOO Til K BIOGRAPHY OF 

Between three ami four thousand Americana met in Exe- 
ter Hall, in London, and under the presidency of Minister 
Lowell, in which he closed a brief address in these words: 
"I should do injustice to your feelings as well as to my 
own, if I did not offer our grateful acknowledgments to 
the august lady, who, — herself not unacquainted with 
grief, — has so repeatedly and so touchingly shown how 
true a woman's heart may beat under the royal purple." 

On the day of the funeral, memorial services were 
held in all the churches of the larger cities in England, 
and in numerous rural parishes, and public and private 
buildings were draped in black and white. 

On the continent there were universal expressions of 
sympathy and condolence. The Russian Government, 
presented to the American Legation at St. Petersburg 
words of kindly sympathy, and all the newspapers of the 
imperial city published warm obituary notices of the 
President, dwelling upon his high personal qualities, and 
saying that Russia, whose " heart was sensible of its own 
recent loss, felt profound sympathy for the great Amer- 
ican nation which has ever shown the same sympathies 
for Russia." 

King Leopold, of Belgium, ordered his court to wear 
mourning eight days as a token of respect for the late 
President. So also did King Alfonso, of Spain ; and the 
press of Madrid wen- unanimous in expressions of condo- 
lence, and speaking of President Garfield as the " inde- 
fatigable defender of true liberty and administrative 
morality." 

The Diet of the Province of Lower Austria voted a 
resolution of condolence to Mr-. Garfield. The Rouman- 
ian Government ordered a requiem lor the dead Presi- 



JAMES A. GARFTBLD 

dent to be chanted at the cathedral in Bncli Sun- 

day morning, September 25. An 

dent took place in the Oratory Church three 

o'clock on Saturday afternoon, the 24th, to which the 
French and all friends of the United Stab s wen 
Special places were allotted to the Diplomatic < : 

high functionaries. From Rome, Cardinal Jacobina, the 
Papal Secretary of State, in behalf of the P 
graphed condolence to Mrs. Garfield. The Italian govern- 
ment, in behalf of its King and the people, seul woi 
sympathy; and the American Legation in Rome was the 
recipient of a continual stream of letters and telegrams 
offering condolence. Several of these were from the 
Italian Court, which was attending the wedding of the 
Crown Prince of Sweden. 

Words of sympathy and conduit -ix-. rom the 

Emperor William, at Berlin; and on October 30, 
funeral service in memory of President Garfield was held 
in the principal room in the Town Hall of thai 
which was draped with mourning. Many persons were 
present, including members of the diplomatic coi 
tific and learned societies, the Minister of the Interior. 
the Minister of Public Works, the Minister of Jn 
and military and municipal authorities. Professor ( ri 
delivered an oration before a colossal bust of th< 
President. Letters of regret because of their inabili 
be present were sent by Prince Charles ami Prince I 
erick Charles. There was choral music at ening 

and conclusion of the services. 

At Paris, the British ambassador (Lord Lyons) was 
among the first to wait upon the American ministi 
offer condolence : and on the same day Prasui I ' 



70S TUK BIOGRAPHY OF 

of the French Republic, sent the following telegram to 
Mr,. Garfield : 

" Mont-Sous Yaudrey, Sept, 20, 1881. 
" I Learn that the Presidentof the United State, has just 
died, notwithstanding the excellent and intelligent care 
which he has received during the long period of his Buffer- 
ing. Be pleased to convey the expression of w\ sympa- 
thy to Mrs. GarOeld, his widow, whose carriage during 
the painful ordeal to which he has been subjected has 
called forth my sincere admiration. Accept, also, in my 
name and in that of the French Republic the expression 
of the deep grief which we feel in consequence of the fatal 
result of the odious crime to which Mr. Garfield has fallen 
q victim. GBJBVY." 

Both Houses of the Parliaments of Victoria and New 
South Wales, Australia and New Zealand unanimously 
adopted addresses of sympathy. Grateful for the exhibi- 
tion of kindly feelings from all parts of the British Em- 
pire, the Secretary of State telegraphed as follows to 
Minister Lowell : 

"Publish a card in the London press saying that the 
bereaved family of the late President and the mourning 
Nation are deeply touched by the kind messages of sympa- 
thy which the telegraph brings from all parts of the Brit- 
ish Empire, and expressing deep regret at the impossibili- 
ty of making the special acknowledgment due in each ease. 

B u ink. Secretary." 

Aristarchi Bey, the Turkish Ambassador to the Uni- 
ted States, wrote to Secretary Blaine, as follows, from New 
York : 

"The Minister of Foreign Affairs telegraphs me that 
the Sultan and the Ottoman Government are profoundly 



JAMK& I. GAHFIBLD. 






grieved at the death of the President, and his Excellency 
charges me to present, in the name of his Majesty and 
the Government, their sincerest sympathy to Mrs. Garfield 

and the Government of the United States. 

" Akimakchi." 

A correspondent writing from Santiago, Chili, say- : 
The death of President Garfield created a profound im- 
pression here. Nearly all of the newspapers were draped 
in black, the places of business were closed, flags were 
placed at half-mast, and the church bells almost every- 
where were tolled. A general and deep feeling of sorrow- 
prevailed among the people of all classes, and those in 
authority seemed anxious to express their sympathy for 
the American people in their great sorrow. Gen. Kilpat- 
rick received an official telegram from the Secretary of 
State Chili couched in the following language : "In 
the name of his Excellency, the President of the Republic 
of Chili, and his Cabinet, I desire to make known t<> your 
Excellency our profound sorrow for the death of the 
President of the United States. This great calamity is 
felt here in Chili as an absolute public sentiment, so deep 
ly are we interested in the good fortune and prospi 
of the great Republic that your Excellency with bo 
much dignity represents here," 

The expressions of sympathy which came over the 
from Europe and the far-off islands, might be greatly 
multiplied. Sufficient lias been here given to illn 
the universal grief that was manifested for the death of 
President Garfield. Let us turn for a moment and view 
the aspect of our country in those days of mourning. 

Throughout the entire Republic, without the I 



710 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

tion of a city, village or hanilet, or even rural dwellings 
tokens of mourning were displayed while the body of the 
dead President was lying in state under the great dome of 
the National Capitol, or was receiving the honors of fun- 
eral ceremonies at the tomb. It was truly and most signifi- 
cantly a day of National mourning in the United State? ; 
more completely so than at the time of the death of the 
martyred Lincoln, for then a large portion of the people 
of the Union stood in tin; attitude of its enemies: The 
smoke of the battles of a fearful civil war was just clear- 
ing away, and the fearful animosities which had heen en- 
gendered during that struggle were yet active and malig- 
nant. 

Now, these animosities had in a large degree disap- 
peared. 'I'hc conciliatory course of President Hayes, and 
especially the foreshadowing and earnest carrying out of 
a similar policy by President Garfield, had inaugurated an 
era of good feeling, and never before, in the history of 
our country, was there less sectional strife displayed than 
at the moment when President Garfield was struck down by 
the assassin's bullet. When, therefore, the news of that 
dreadful event went over the land, there were expressions of 
horror because of the deed, and sympathy forthedistn esed 
family, warm and heartfelt, by the people in all pails of 
the Union,— the North and the South, the East and the 
West. In tin- presence of the public grief, all former dif- 
ferences were forgotten. 

The universal solicitude felt and expressed by the 
whole people of the Republic, during the eighty days of in- 
tense Buffering by the victim, was mosl acute. The Nation 
seemed to be as one family, watching by the bedside 6f a 
dear friend who wae tenderly loved. And finally, when 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 711 

death came and snatched from earth the gr< 
there was a general burst of grief, deep and Bincerc. The 
hour seemed intensely dark for the Nation, for a mo- 
ment, when in streamed the light of Garfield's glorious 
words, uttered in New York on the morning of the death 
of Lincoln: "God reigns and the Government at 
Washington still lives." 

When the time for the burial of the dead chief came, 
almost every dwelling in the land, from the palatial resi- 
dence of the wealthy inhabitant of a great city, to the 
log-cabin of the humble dark toiler in the cotton-fields of 
the South, and of the pioneers in the wilderness. 

What wc have said of the appearance of Euclid 
Avenue in Cleveland, on the day of the funeral, may be 
said of the great thoroughfares in all our cities. The 
commercial metropolis of the nation — the city of New 
York — may be taken as an illustration of the aspect of 
other cities in the Union, on that occasion. It was thus 
described by the New York Times: 

" All classes participated in the sad celebration, and 
the ragged inhabitants of the tenement-houses of the 
lower part of the City seemed to feel as keenly and t<> 
lament as sorely the bereavement of the Nation as the 
denizens of the mansions of Fifth avenue. The City was 
unusually quiet — more so, if possible, than it is on Sun- 
day. Broadway, with its double line of heavily draped 
buildings, was naturally the centre of attraction t<. the 
multitude, and it was thronged all day. There we»o 
thousands whose business had before prevented them 
from looking upon the magnificent decorations of tin- 
great, thoroughfare, and yesterday they flocked to 
upon the emblems of woe with which the busines men of 



712 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

the City had draped their buildings. The crowd which 
thronged both sides of the street from Fourteenth street 
to the Battery was as dense as it usually is on business 
days, but it exhibited none of the hurry and bustle of 
business days. Everybody walked slowly, Boberly, and 
quietly along, pausing occasionally at windows where 
some particularly elaborate display was made, and gazing 
upward at the long streamers of black and white which 
depended from every building. 

" Must of the bar-rooms were open, but few drunken 
men were to be seen. The day was \<>ry warm, and the. 
rays of the sun beat down with pitiless force upon the 
heads of the promenades, but nobody seemed to mind 
the heat. It is safe to say that on no other day, and on 
no other occasion, would so many persons have braved the 
torrid temperature. The trucks and business wagons, 
which on ordinary days fill the street and deafen the ear 
with their rumbling, were missing, but their place was 
taken by a long line of vehicles such as are seldom to be 
seen in Broadway. The elegant equipages of the wealthy 
residents of the avenues deserted for once Central Park 
and the fashionable drives, and appeared in long lines 
along Broadway from morning to night. Ladies and 
gentlemen from up town drove along the street, observing 
the decorations and the crowds which lined the sidewalks. 

"The effect of this procession in a street like Broad- 
way, which is: seldom given up to anything but business, 
was striking and picturesque. The omnibuses were 
crowded all day long, hut everybody wanted to ride on 

top in the broiling sun to get a better view of the decora- 
tions, and the result was that the roofs were packed with 
men. Nearly every place of business, except restaurants. 



JAMES A. OARFIELD. 713 

drug stores, and shops necessary to be open, was clobed 
daring the day; the show windows were concealed by 
drawn curtains or heavy folds of black drapery. A point 
of peculiar interest which attracted thousands was the 
City Hall, with its elaborate draping*. The throngs, as 
they passed down Broadway, turned off into tin. City Hall 
Park and stood in deep columns fronting the Hall and ad- 
miring the work which had been done upon it. Only 
the outside could be seen by the public yesterday, the 
decoration.^ v( the inside being guarded 1>\ the closed iron 
gates. The picture of the murdered President, sur- 
mounted by the broken column and its wreath of flowers, 
elicited enthusiastic comments from all lips. The park 
was crowded all day until night fell upon the scene, and 
for a long time after quite a large gathering remained in 
front of the Hall. 

" A feature of the observance of the day was the ap- 
pearance of the shipping in the harbor. The docks along 
the water-front, both in the North and East Rivers, were 
crowded with steamers and sailing craft, and on board of 
all the solemnity of the occasion was fully recognized and 
its observance faithfully kept. The ensigns on all the 
vessels were displayed at half-mast, and foreign phips, KB 
well as American, paid this tribute of respect to a Nation's 
sorrow. At Pier No. 9 East River the British brig Ran- 
som flew the English flag at half-mast, with a broad band 
of black crape across the centre of the red field. The 
tugs and barges which usually appear moving in the rivcfs 
were all laid up. The docks were Bilent and deserted, 
and the crowds of 'longshoremen which are usually to be 
found along the river-fronts were absent from their old 
haunts. The people on the canal-boats were in holiday 



714 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

attire, and many of them came ashore to witness the dec 
orations. On nearly all vessels, foreign as well as. Ameri- 
can, all work was suspended and the crews were given a 
holiday. 

" The Post-office was closed for business at eleven 
o'clock in the morning, and the Custom-house and other 
Federal buildings, as well as all the Municipal offices, were 
closed during the day. None of the schools were open, 
all the Exchanges were closed, and there was, to all 
intents and purposes, a total suspension of business. At 
Bun-nse, the cannon of the Navy yard and at Governor's 
Island belched forth a salute of thirteen guns. At two 
o'clock, the time which was understood to mark the inter 
ment of the dead President, the church and tire bells of 
the city began to toll, and continued for half an hour, 
while minute guns were fired on Governor's Island, and 
from the barge office during the same period. The effect 
of the tolling bells and the booming guns was inexpres- 
sibly solemn, and brought the whole city to the tomb in 
< leveland, where a Nation's dead was being laid to rest. 
The religious exercises which marked the day were pecu- 
liarity impressive." 

All over the country, in rural districts, funeral cere- 
monies were held in churches and other places at the 
hour appointed for the obsequies at ('lcveland. Atone of 
thcsc.in the heart of Duchess County, New York, one 
of the speakers alluding to the fact that for eighty days 

all Christendom had been offering up solemn and earnesl 
prayers tor the life of the President, remarked: 

*• Blind skepticism and shallow philosophy said. 'This 
is your answei to prayer!' Unbelief trailed its sombre 
banner in the dust. The faith of multitud • way 



JAMEB A. OARFIELi) 

for the moment, and trembling la-arts asked the dreadful 

question, 'It; this our answer to prayer?' Let u 
member that — 

' God moves in a mysterious way. 
His wonders to perform ;' 

" Has he not answered our prayers '( Has he not given 
us more than we, in our finite ignorance, asked i We plead- 
ed for the preservation of the mortal life of our beloved 
President — a fleeting shadow, at best. We prayed for 
the continuance of his bodily life on earth; our Omniscient 
Father has preserved for us his better life — the powerful 
moral influence of his mortal career and character, which 
has been so wonderfully diffused throughout the civilized 
world during the eighty days of suffering — vicarious suf- 
fering, as it were, for the political sons of our people ami 
of mankind, 'which, I trust, will result in our redemp- 
tion from much public evil. 

"James A. Garfield still lives in the fullness of the 
life which belong to the salutory moral influence of his 
public and private career. Our prayers have been 
answered with all the plenitude of a loving Father's 
goodness. Far more useful and beneficent, to the • 
of faith, appears the life of our President to-day, than 
when he walked the earth in mortal garb. In its grand 
moral strength, it touches the hearts, leads the oon 
directs the wills and fashions the opinions of myriad* 
our race. 

"His way of life recalls to us the secret cause of the 
international mourning to-day. It has been that 
Christian gentleman; a disciple of Justice and Ri 



,'iti rill. BIOGHAPHT OF 

; a champion of tlio Good and True. And for that 
way of life the world is indebted, under God, to the in- 
fluence of a woman the aged woman of Huguenot 
blood, Bitting, at this hour, by the side of the mortal 
remains of our President, her son bowed in grief, and 
with the weight of four score years of toiling life, yet 
patient and placid, for she is upheld by the arms of a 
living faith in the righteousness of Heaven." 

That the long suffering and death of President Gar- 
field, which so intensely excited the interest and sympa- 
thy of the civilized world, will be the means of cementing 
in a more permanent bond of common brotherhood the 
nations of the earth, there can be no doubt. By this dis- 
pensation the hearts of our countrymen have been drawn 
into closer union as one people having all interests in com- 
mon. And it is believed that by it the animosities and 
heart-burnings which have been fostered for a century be- 
tween England and her mature daughter will be cured. 
The Pall Mall (Loudon) Gazette said at the time of Gar- 
field's death : 

k " To-day, when England and America stand as mourn- 
ers beeide one grave, we may venture to hope that the 
bitter memories and animosities engendered by the Revo- 
lutionary war are finally passed away ;" and suggests that 
England and America shall endeavor to arrange some 
kind of an informal union for the prevention of interne- 
cine strife. "If an European concert, despite almost in- 
surmountable difficulties is recognized as a political neces- 
sity, why should there not be an Anglo-American concert 
wide enough to include in one fatherland all English* 
speaking men '." 

The 'London i Standard Baid, at the same time: 



jambs a. oarfieLd. ?n 

"The attitude of the American people during the pro- 
tracted season of the President's prostration has been ad- 
mirable, and such as only a strong and sterling community 

could exhibit. They have shown how tightly knit is the 
national and patriotic tie among them by the suspense 
they have silently, and without any combination or agree- 
ment, imposed upon political rancor. Perhaps we are 
not wrong in thinking that they have in some small de- 
gree been aided in this dignified course by the perpetual 
current of sympathy that has gone out toward them from 
this side of the ocean. Here in England we know what 
it is for the nation to wait for hourly news from the bed- 
side of great citizens. The one touch of nature required 
to make the whole world kin has been present. ' It 
might have been so with us,' is the basis of that imagina- 
tive sympathy which enables one English-speaking com- 
munity to throb and thrill with the emotions that shake 
the other. Undoubtedly for no other ruler, no crowned 
head or other President of a Republic, could the English 
people have felt as they felt in the case of Mr. Garfield. 
Blood is thicker than water ; and all the breadth of the 
Atlantic leaves Englishmen and Americans one people in 
such a moment, and under such terribly trying circum- 
stances. If there be yet another crumb of consolation to 
gather from one of the most painful incidents of modern 
times it is the reflection that, in emergencies such as the 
people of the United States have had to face, freedom is 
justified of her children. Nowhere save in a community 
nerved by the habitual exercise of liberty, and the tradi- 
tional assertion of that self-control which is fostered in 
the absence of external compulsion, could feelings bo deep 



I'll: A, 1/7/)" OF 

and anxic acute have expressed themselves 

apparent. less a mam.' 

'.._ ad and the English people generally 
tu have had an almost sudden revelation, no: 
of the grand personality of President Garfield, but of the 
excellence and advantages of onr political institutions, 
'fa said: "If one might venture to 
y one in America that he would never be Presi- 
dent or even a distinguished citizen, it would be an infant 
in a log hut, just rescued from a forest fire by efforts 
tig the life of its father, and throwing all the work 
on the wretched widow. How was such a being to ac- 
quire any of the qualifications for politics, r the com- 
monest social position \ In this country i i ■ pro- 
nounced impossible, even if the difficulty only 
in a limited income, a village hon 

and a narrow circle of friends. The cry here is that noth- 
ing can be done without enormous assistance, and a des- 
•arrying everything before it. Nothing, it is said, 
can be done without a irt : nothing without good 

tothing with I _ 1 opportunities. In point 
of fact, we are rapidly producing and swelling to an 

langerous class in the world — 

- that, with all the physical energies and app. 

of full-grown without the real independence 

ility by which those energies are directed 

and t'.. The lest true inde- 

:i had to In- taught under conditions 

that d -\ • Tl i re is the inevitable reply 

that th extraordinary abil- 

■mmon luck, and that, after al 
vulgar thii the worldling. There can be 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

no such disparaging thoughts here. President Garfield's 
has been a truly heroic career — heroic in its beginning, in 
ite long struggle, and in its end." 
87 



722 Till: BIOGRAPHY 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

garfield's domestic life. 

The aspect of President Garfield's domestic life, 
whether at the National Capital or at his rural home in 
Ohio, was charming in every feature. So testify all who 
knew or had a right to know it most familiarly. The 
moral and intellectual atmosphere there was always pure, 
always healthful, always invigorating, always inspiriting ; 
love, born of mutual respect and appreciation and of 
abiding friendship, was the presiding deity of the house- 
hold, and none but its worshippers found a domicil 
therein. 

In preceding pages we have had mere glimpsed of the 
elements which constituted this household in the character 
of those who founded it — of the grand old matron who 
bore him ; of the model wife and mother ; the noble, 
generous, big-souled husband and father, and intelligent, 
promising and loving children, like their parents simple 
in their tastes and lovely in character. The husband and 
wife became acquainted in their time of adolescence ; were 
fellow-students and helpers in maturer years ; appreciated 
and honored each other's worth, and after a long betrothal, 
when time had tempered every extravagances of fancy, 
had married and began home-life in a simple way. 

Mrs. Garfield was ever a help-mate in the truest sense 
of the expression, industrious, prudent, wise, cheerful, 
even minded, trustful and loving. Of her stability of 
character and sound judgment, her husband once said, in 



JAME'S A. '/. I 7.7 7/7 !>. 

the later years of his public life : " I bave been wonder 
fully blessed in the discretion of my wife. She u one of 
the coolest and best-balanced women I ever saw, She is 
unstampcdable. There has not been one solitary instance 
of my public career where 1 have suffered in the smallest 
degree for any remark she has ever made. It would have 
been perfectly natural for a woman often to say some 
thing that could be misinterpreted, but without any de- 
sign, and with the intelligence and coolness of her char- 
acter, she has never made the slightest mistake that I 
ever heard of. V-ith the competition that has been against 
me, many times such discretion has been a real blessing." 

A writer, one of her own sex, living in Washington, 
wrote as follows of Mrs. Garfield at about the time of her 
husband's inauguration; 

" She has ' the philosophic mind 1 that Wordsworth 
sings of, and she has a self-poise, a strength of unswerving 
absolute rectitude. . . . Mueh of the time that 
other women give to distributing visiting-cards, in the 
frantic effort to make themselves ' leaders of soeirty," Mr-. 
Garfield spends in the alcoves of the Congressional Li 
brary, searching out books to cam home to study while 
she nurses the children. You may be sure of one thing- - 
the woman who reads and studies while >he rocks ber 
babies will not be left far behind by her husband in the 
march of actual growth. I have seen many women come 
to the surface of capitolian life out of obscurity a: 
back into obscurity again ; have seen hundiv 
called 'leaders of society' shrivel and go out in the 
scorching flame of fashion; while I have followed with a 
tender heart this woman, the wife of a famoufl man— u 
woman whom nobodv called a ' leader.' 



7-ji 'j hi-: mOQRAPni of 

" She, meanwhile, has not been lifted off herfe< . 
many women are, by her husband's rising fortunes ; no 

'spreading' forth in style of dress or living, no 'airs.' 
And in Washington, in official life, that means everything 
— indicative of character. She has moved on in the tran- 
quil tenor of her unobtrusive way, in a life of absolute 
devotion to her duty ; never forgetting the demands of her 
position or neglecting her friends, yet making it her first 
charge to bless her home, to teach her children, to fit her 
boys for college, to be the equal friend, as well as the hon- 
ored wife, of her husband. Gentle, patient, unobtrusive 
almost to timidity, keenly intelligent, liberally educated, 
conscientiously devoted to everything good — this is the 
woman who will perpetuate the loving, consecrated 
life that to-day abides in the White House, if as its mis- 
tress she enters it." 

The writer of this volume never saw Mr. or Mrs. Gar- 
field, and must therefore depend upon others, who have, 
for a description of their personal appearance. A writer 
during the Presidential canvass in 18S0, describes them as 
follows : 

" In porson Gen. Garfield is six feet high, hroad- 
shouldered and strongly built, lie has an unusually large 
head, that seems to l>e three-fourths forehead, light-brown 
hair and beard, large, light-blnc eyes,a prominent 
and full cheek.-. lie dresses plainly, is fond of broad- 
brimmed slouch hats and stout boots, € ts heartily, cares 
nothing for luxurious living, is thoroughly temperate in 
all respeeu save in that <>f brain-work, and devoted to his 
wife and children and very fund of hi.- country home. 
Among men he i.- genial, approachable, companionable) 
and a remarkably entertaining talker. 



JAMES J. 9ARFIBLD. 7M 

"Mrs. Garfield is a woman of medium height, aji 
alight but well-knit form, has a kind good ; the 

gentlest of manners. Sho has small features, witL a some 
what prominent forehead, and her black hair, crimped in 
front and done up in a modest eoil, L- slightly tinged with 
gray. A pair of black eyes, and a month about which 
there plays a sweetly bewitching smile, are the most at 
tractive features of a thoroughly expressive faro. In 
dress she is qnite as plain as the present mistress of the 
White House, whom she resembles in several respect*. 
Her manners arc graceful and winning in the extreme. 
Though she k noted for her modest, retiring ways and her 
thorough domesticity more than for any other distinguish- 
ing characteristic, her educational accomplishments art- 
many and varied. In all the public life of her distin- 
guished companion she has been his constant helpmate and 
adviser. She is a quick observer, an intelligent listener, 
but undemonstrative in the extreme. "When the General 
was at Chickamauga, and everybody at Hiram was painfully 
anxious to get the latest news from the held of battle, Bhe 
sat quiet and patient in what is now Professor Hinsdale's 
cosy library, and was able to control the inmost emotions 
that swayed her breast. How she received the nev 
the General's nomination at Chicago will probably never 
be fully known, but everybody who knows her is sure 
that she was as undemonstrative as when waiting for new-, 
from Chickamauga." 

A visitor at their rural home in Ohio, giving an 
count of the household, wrote as follows of G 
field's mother, and of an interview with her: 

!' k Have you met my mother?' asked Gen. Garfield 

** « No,' I replied; 



Tin: BIOQRAPUT 

Vl '0h, T want to introduce you then; you must know 
mother. 1 

"He spoke of her so often, and so tenderly, I could 

not but sec that she was constantly in his thoughts. 1 
went down stairs to see her. She is a very small woman and 
appeared almost diminutive beside her stalwart son. She 
is eighty years of age, quick in her movements, and in full 
posession of her mental faculties. She is thin, white-haired, 
rosy-checked, and has a prominent nose. 

" On being introduced, 1 found her rather reticent, she 
seemed to be most concerned about the children and the 
work around the house, that it should go on uninterrupt- 
edly." 

Both General Garfield and his wife were thoroughly 
attached to the region of country in which they were 
born, grew and dwelt during the earlier years of their 
happy married life ; but when he became a member of 
Congress be was compelled to have a home in Washing- 
ton also. His pecuniary means were limited, and during 
the greater portion of his congressional career, simplicity 
and economy were necessarily practiced in both homes. 

Garfield's Washington home (which he had built for 
himself), was plain, roomy, well arranged, every way 
comfortable, but, fortunately for him, it was not a large 
house, for when the family were in it, there was no other 
limit to its hospitality excepting its area in square feet. 
The house was always open to friends, "new and old. 
high and humble, plain and cultured;" There was in it 
a rare commingling of the atmosphere of politics, litera- 
ture, sociality, quiet family cultivation, children's sports, 

ami Unusual good nature. 

This metropolitan home was ;> modest, unpretentious 



JAMES A GARFIELD 

mansion of brick, plain and square built, near the famous 
Franklin School building-, and fronting on Franklin 
Square. The neighborhood is respectable, but bv do 
means fashionable. The parlor side windows of the bouse 

looked out on the pleasant park. A recent writer (1880) 
said : 

"Above all other places of interest in this house, 
however, is the library. Here is the working-ground of 
a man of energy and ideas; here the student and scholar 
lives and has being in the exclusion of the man ; here the 
statesman and politician takes nourishment and flourishes. 
The room is about twenty-five by fourteen feet, three 
windows opening south on I street, one to the east. The 
pattern carpet leaves about three feet of stained floor 
about the margin. In the centre and under the heavy 
chandelier is a double walnut ollice-desk, with an addition 
of pigeon-holes and boxes and drawers on the end. There 
is an air of legal brusqueness everywhere, of orderly dis- 
order, as if the owner cared less for general symmetry 
than for immediate convenience. 

" Half a dozen bookcases occupy the available space 
against the walls, and two or three thousand books 
freight their shelves. No two of these cases are alii.' 
the same height, width or make. It is as if the accumu- 
lation had from time to time overflown the limit of boot 
room, and another case had been hastily procured in 
which to store the surplus, and then, when that was full, 
another was added, and so on. Books, books, books ! It 
is the one striking feature of Mr. Garfield's home. They 
confront one in the hall upon entering, in the parlor and 
sitting-room and in the dining-room— yes, and even in 
the bath-room, where documents and speeehes arc ordeol 



728 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

up liku firewood. I would nut be at all surprise*! if a 
fair library could be discovered iu the kitchen. Among 
all these books there is not a trashy volume. Thev are 
law and history, biography, poetry, politics, philosophy, 
government, and standard works of all sorts, the accumu- 
lation of years of study, and the patient research of the 
scholur. And these are but a portion of Mr. Garfield's 
collection, a considerable one being at his country home 
in Ohio." 

Those who knew General Garfield best, speak with 
admiration of his untiring industry and ever studious 
habits. He was a continually hungry learner. His theory 
was that variation of labor was productive of rest. One 
of his friends has given this single illustration: 

"Once during the busiest part of a very busy session 
at "Washington I found him in his library, behind a big 
barricade of books. This was no unusual sight, but when 
I glanced at the volumes I saw that they were all different 
editions of Horace, or books relating to that poet. ' I find 
I am overworked and need recreation,' said the General. 
' Now, my theory is that the best way to rest the mind is 
not to let it be idle, but to put it at something quite out- 
side of the ordinary line of its employment. So I am 
resting by learning all the Congressional library can show 
about Horace, and the various editions and translations of 
his poems.' " 

We have observed in our earlier portion of this vol- 
ume, that Mr. and Mrs. Garfield kept up their classical 
studies together while ho was on duty in Congress. He 
often found relief from the cares and fatigues of public 
life in literary pastime. He alludes to his longing for 

domestic quiet and the sweets of literature in the follow- 



./AMES A. GARFIELD. 739 

ing sentence in a letter to Colonel A. F. Rockwell, written 
at Washington in May, 1873 : 

" After many years of prosperity and success, it baa 
been my fortune to try the discipline of disaster, without 
any fault or wrong on my part. My name has been 
dragged into the whirlpool of calumny, and I have been 
defending nrjself against assault. I enclose you a copy of 
my review of the Credit Mobilier rascality, ami shall be 
glad to know how it strikes you. I think of you as away 
and in an elysium of quiet and peace, where I should love 
to he, out of the storm and in the sunshine of love ami 
books. Do not think from the above that I am despond- 
ent. There is life and hope and tight in your old friend 
yet." 

A few months afterwards (January, 1874), he wrote ;i- 
follows to Colonel Rockwell : 

"Permit me to transcribe a metrical version which \ 
made the other day of the third ode of Horace's first 
book. It is still in the rough : 

* To the Ship which carried Virgil to Athens. 

i. 
' So may the powerful goddess of Cyprus, 
So may the brothers of Helen, twin stars, 
So may the father and ruler of tempest 
(Restraining all others, save only lapix), 

ii. 
' Guide thee, ship, on thy journey, that owest 
To Attica's shores Virgil trusted to thee. 
I pray thee restore him, in safety restore him. 
And saving him, save me the half of my soul. 



ran THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

ill. 
1 Stout oak and brass triple surrounded his bosom 
Who first to the waves of the merciless sea 
Committed his frail hark. He feared not Africus, 
Fierce battling the gales of the furious North. 

IV. 

' Nor feared he the gloom of the rain-be.iring Hyads, 
Xor the rage of fierce Xotus, a tyrant than whom 
Xo storm-god that rules o'er the broad Adriatic 
Is mightier, its billows to rouse or to calm. 

v. 
' What form, or what pathway of death him affrighted, 
Who faced with dry eyes monsters swimming the deep, 
Who gazed without fear on the storm-swollen billows, 
And the lightning-scarred rocks, grim with death on 
the shore ? 

VI. 

' In vain did the prudent Creator dissever 
The lands from the lands by the desolate sea, 
If o'er its broad bosom, to mortals forbidden, 
Still leap, all profanely, our impious keels. 

VII. 

' Recklessly bold to encounter all dangers, 
Through deeds Grod forbidden still rushes our race ; 
The son of lapelus, Heaven-defying, 
By impious fraud to the nations brought fire. 

VI n. 

' When fire was thus stolen from regions celestial 
Decay smote the earth and brought d*>wn in his train 
A new summoned cohorl of fevers o'erbrooding, 
And Pate, till then slow and reluctant to strike, 

IX. 

' (lave wings to his speed and swift death to his victims. 
Bold Dffidalus tried the void realms of the air, 
Borne upward on pinions nul giv.en to mortals. 
The labors of Her< tiles broke into Hell. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 731 

X. 

1 Naught ia too high for the daring of mortals, 
Even Heaven we seek in our folly to scale : 
By our own impious crimes we permit not the thunder 
To sleep without flame in the right hand of Jove.' 

u I can better most of these verses, but send them to 
you as I lift them in the first rough draft." 

In 1875, General Garfield was compelled to submit to 
a painful surgical operation, and was obliged to remain in 
Washington several weeks after the adjournment of Con 
gress, waiting for recovery. On one of the peculiarly 
hot day 8 at the National Capital, a friend called upon 
him and found him alone with his wife. 

" I have been reading/' said the General from his sick 
bed, "charming, silly old Bozzy's [Boswell's] account of 
his journey with Dr. Johnson to the Hebrides over again. 
He is always the same kindly, lazy, genial man, forever 
saying good things — a sleek, soft-handed, softhearted giant 
of a fellow. I have read, since I have been lying here, 
struggling with this pain, eighteen volumes ; and I have 
indexed and common-placed them all. Pretty fair work, 
I take it, for six weeks of midsummer in Washington." 

" The narrative of 'Bozzy's journey ' lay beside him, 
and an immense atlas, supported by an elevated stand, 
stood near the bed opened at the map which showed tin- 
course of the travellers in their trip to the Hebrides. II is 
wife was tracing with a pencil the ins and outs which 
they took to the Northern Islands. It was in this w.iy 
that General Garfield was turning to profit the leisure that 
the surgeon's knife had given him." 



732 THE BIOORAPBT OF 

At about that time (July 8, 1875), Gen. Garfield wrote 
to President Hinsdale as follows : 

" I am taking advantage of thin enforced leisure to do 
a good deal of reading. Since I was taken sick I Lave 
read the following : Sherman's two volumes ; Leland's 
'English Gypsies;' George Borrow's 'Gypsies of 
Spain;' Borrow's ' Rom many Rye ;' Tennyson's 'Mary;' 
seven volumes of Fronde's England ; several plays of 
Shakespeare, and have made some progress in a new book, 
which I think you will l>e glad to see, 'The History of 
the English People,' by Prof. Green, of Oxford, in one 
volume." 

General Garfield's rural home when he was elected 
President of the United States, was in Mentor, in Lake 
County, Ohio, where he purchased a farm of about one 
hundred and fifty acres, lying on each side of the Lake 
Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. About 1875, he 
sold his cottage at Hiram, and built a little summer resi- 
dence on Little Mountain, a bold elevation in Lake Coun- 
ty, which commands a view of thirty miles of rich farming 
country stretched along the shores of Lake Erie. In 1877, 
lie bought the farm in Mentor. It was in a state of high 
cultivation, and there the statesman, when relieved of" 
harness in the public service, indulged in exquisite recrea- 
tion in directing field-work, and making improvements in 
building.-, fences and orchards. 

Twenty-five miles away is the beautiful citv of 
Cleveland ; and the pretty rural town of Painesville is 
only four or six miles distant. Within half a mile of the 
residence is B post-office and a railway station. About two 
miles away, through the woods, is the shore of Lake 
Erie, the place of the old farm-house. General Garfield 



./.I. i//> .1. GARFIELD ;:u» 

built a new and quite spacious home, which may by 
from the Lake Shore Railway, and this pleasant country 
seat was named ' v Lawnfield." 

Major Bundy, injiis campaign life of Garfield, givee 
the following interesting account of his visit to " Lawn- 
field," after its master was nominated for the Presidency 

in 18SM ; 

"The new Mentor home, however, is the most aotable 

and visited place in the country, and all the housekeeping 
tact and ability of Mrs. Garfield are put to their sever- 
est test by the crowd of visitors. That she was equal to 
every emergency, and seemed at the end of each day's 
'country hotel' keeping as fresh, undisturbed and free 
of care-marks as though the daylight hours had passed in 
elegant leisure, I can testify from an experience of an 
eight days' visit in the latter part of June and the first of 
July, when ' Lawntield ' was busiest and most populous. 
In that eventful period for the Garfield household, I 
failed to see that Governors and Senators and Con§ 
men and Generals and committee-men fared any better, 
or were treated with more courtesy, than 'common 
people.' If Governor Foster's arrival was hailed with 
unusual fervor, it was not because of his title, but because 
he was greeted as the old friend 'Charles, 5 or 'Charlie 
Foster,' by the older, and as 'Uncle Charlie' by the 
younger members of the family. His response to all these 
greetings was hearty, but especially to the last. 

."Driving along the wide, pleasant, well-kept, I 
shaded road for six miles from the lovely town of Paines- 
ville, with lawn-surrounded houses worthy of the finest 
suburbs of New York, the firet impressions of ' Lawn- 
field ' are decidedly attractive. The aspect oi the large 



784 TEE EIOORAPEY OF 

well-proportioned and honicdike product of Mrs. Garfield's 
skill and taste is that of the country place of a family who 
want plenty of room, indoors and on piazzas. Although 
costing far less than would be thought economical for a 
carriage-house up the Hudson, it is by no means an ordi- 
nary or uninteresting structure. To be particular : with 
its sixty feet of front and fifty of depth ; with its three 
stories, including that under the high and picturesque 
roof ; with its commodious piazzas without and wide 
hallways within, and graceful proportions generally, it 
is a piece of architecture that grows in one's esteem, 
especially as it so admirably fits into a lovely landscape, 
and is dignified by the number of the outbuildings, large 
and small, all suggesting the uses of actual farming and 
also perfect arrangement. 

" With enclosed grass fields in front and on the south- 
western side ; with the croquet lawn between it and the 
road ; with the orchard and garden on the east, and a 
lane in the rear through which the sunset glories trans- 
figure the bordering trees, and with the book and desk 
and table filled little house near and to one side of the 
rear, it suggests truthfully the living and working place 
of a family enjoying Nature's most human aspect — that 
iu which she responds to all of healthy, hard-working, 
simple, human nature's needs and tastes. Its interior 
arrangements show careful and thoughtful provision for 
the several and various demands of the family, especially 
the cosey and cheerful upstairs 'snuggery' of the 
General, and the delightful room, on the ground floor, 
with the front piazza on one side the garden on another, 

and the parlor on another, devoted to the uses of the 
most important and one of the busiest members of the 



JAMES .1. GARFIELD. 



household, independent, individual and uuiqno ' Mother' 
Garfield, who is as bright and vigorous as most old ladies 
of sixty or less, and between whom and her ' .1 
there is a comradeship which is only abandoned when, in 
her judgment, the compliments of distinguished guests 
seem likelv to make him unmindful of his proper filial 
subordination. And yet, six months before the Chicago 
Convention, this mysterious and prophetic old lady one 
dav startled her son by entering his room, saying, oracu« 
larlv, 'James, you will be nominated for President next 
June,' and departing without saying or waiting for 
another word. She knew what she and Providence had 
been training- him for, as only a mother, and such a 
mother, can know by the mingled intuitions of heart and 
head. 

" The household was enlivened by the presence of the 
General's two eldest boys, Harry A. and James, just 
returned from the famous St. Paul's School, at Concord, 
ISew Hampshire, the former bringing a well-earned prize 
for English declamation. There were, besides, Mollie, a 
bright, joyous, beautiful girl just in her 'teens;' Irvin 
McDowell, next younger, and Abram, the youngest and 
most peculiar of a flock that has in it no ' black sheep." 
together with the son and daughter of Colonel Rockwell, 
of about the ages of Harry and Mollie. These are not 
mentioned by way of mere chronicling of personalities, 
but to illustrate the spirit that pervades the household of 
which they were the life and light. With all their v 
studies and sports, the father and mother Beemed to sym- 
pathize, and fully entered into, as though the latter 
were but ' children of a larger growth." 

"Love took the place of authority on the one Bide, 



7:r, THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

and of fear on the other, and I believe the father had a 
more realizing and prouder sense of his boy Harry's 
success and manly promise than of his own triply accu- 
mulated p >litieal honors. Nor could I see that any mem- 
ber of the family seemed to be put at all out of his or her 
spiritual gear by the constant and inevitable allusions of 
visitors to the probable destiny of the plain head of the 
household. One might have supposed that it had 'run 
in the family' to have Presidential honors, to which, be it 
added, few allusions were made by any of its members, 
though all were pervaded with a pleased consciousness of 
the future, except the General himself, who does not 
welcome the approaching close of the free and unfettered 
activities that have so long been the joy of his vigorous 
life. And he did welcome every good chance to escape 
from the work of dealing with thousands of letters and 
dispatches and continual political calls and conferences, 
to talk over old times and incidents, and to discuss ques- 
tions far removed from politics. If ever a Presidential 
candidate was free from self-consciousness, and regarded 
himself only as the standard-bearer and representative of 
a great party and great principles, James A. Garfield is 
the man. 

" And he is best seen and known at his Mentor home, 
which he began to 'make' three years ago last spring. 
lie had felt a growing longing for his old-time relations 
with Nature, when by hard labor he earned his support 
from her bounties. He wanted the soul-resting labor of 
actual farming, and to get fresh vigor from actual contact 
with ' Mother Earth.' So he bought part of the farm 
be now owns, and has added until it comprises about one 
hundred and fifty acres. Like most of the farms that. 



JAMES A. Q Alt F 1111 D. 

border the old turnpike, or ' ridge road,' near the shore of 
Lake Erie, it has a small frontage, only fifty rods, and 
rnii6 back, across the 'ridge,' about a quarter of a mile in 
the rear, which was the old and wave beaten shore of the 
lake, down across the low and spring-moistened alluvial 
soil of the beautiful valley, in the middle Of which, oq 
the tracks of the Lake Shore Railway, the long and thun- 
dering trains, bearing the mighty traffic of twenty Bt 
suggests the heavy pulsations of a nation's vigorous life. 

" As his wife enlarged and gave beautiful proporr 
to the home-nest, so he mixed his practical and scientific 
farmer brains with the soil he set out to master. A wet 
and uncultivable field between the 'ridge' and the rail- 
road was scientifically drained, and made capable of big 
corn crops ; a hydraulic ram was put in the low land near 
the ridge, which received and was worked by the copious 
and pure spring water from the gravelly ridge, and made 
to send a constant and abundant supply for house and 
ont-honses, for people and for their dumb servants. A 
workshop, a tool-shop, a root-house, improved agricultural 
machinery, and the other outfits of a good farm were 
added; and in all the farm work, the master easily took 
the lead, working with a will, and until tired nature 
brought the solid rest that is not given to brain toilers, 
By this sort of actual companionship with Nature, he has 
recuperated from the prodigious overwork of legislation 
and politics, got renewed strength, and preserved hi.- "Id 
simplicity of tastes. He has got a more valuable crop 
out of that farm than is harvested from the largesi of tin* 
famous Minnesota wheat domains, that rival principalities 
in size and value. 

" T-vvo quite different opportunities of seeing < rarfiold 



738 77//; BlOORAPnT OF 

in his relations with his fellows, outside of politics, wore 
afforded during my visit. The first was the Fourth of 
July celebration at Painesville, whose peculiar interest 
drew out the largest and best attendance of 'Western 
Reserve' people ever known in that handsome town, for 
there was to be witnessed the formal dedication of a 
noble ' Soldiers' Monument/ in the park-like public 
square, which had been many years in course of comple- 
tion, and then everybody wanted to see and hoar their 
own long-trusted and beloved representative, as of old, 
before the nation claimed him. There was a long and 
interesting procession, and there were several good 
speeches. 

" Ex-Governor Cox, the main orator, was scholarly 
and eloquent, of course ; the Hon. A. G. Riddle recalled, 
by his off-hand short speech, the memories of old-time 
irresistible pleas before 'Western Reserve' juries, and 
7W£?/ftd correspondent E. V. Smalley, as one of the first 
company of Painesville volunteers, warmed up into a most 
effective style of reminiscence. But no one had a fair 
chance of securing the full attention of the thousands oi 
intelligent and earnest people who swarmed around the 
speakers' stand and back out of ear-shot, save the pride 
and glory of the 'district,' Garfield. And, moving 
around the crowd that hung breathlessly <>n every glowing 
and thrilling utterance of the ' citizen-soldier,' I could see 
how the 'old Western Reserve,' 'rises at' Garfield, and 
holds him in its heart of hearts, as greater than Giddings, 
vet unspoiled by success and unconscious of the fulness 
of his powers. 

"•The Fourth' came <>n the third, at enterprising 
Painesville. The next day, Sunday, afforded a totally dif- 



JAMES i GARFIELD, ftf 

ferent experience. I was asked to go to the ' Dis. : 
meeting-house, about a mile toward Painesville, and attend 

the worship there, and went, as did pretty nearly all the 
Garfield family. The meeting-house, is a small, old-fash- 
ioned rural New England sort of temple, built of boards 

and paiuted white, with commodious horse-sheds around. 
Tho attendance was not large, but of people who looked 
earnestly religious in their plain and primitive way. 
There was no 'preacher,' in the usual sense of that word. 
But in the preacher's seat was General Garfield's practi- 
cal, original and independent old friend and adviser, one 
of the most noted characters in the 'Reserve' Dr. J. I'. 
Robinson,- who, when young Garfield first seriously con- 
templated the task of getting a college education, careful- 
ly examined the brawny and brainy youth, at the Latter's 
request, and told him that he 'had the brain of a Web- 
ster/ and lung power and muscle to support it. 

"In his younger career the doctor was a famous and 
successful lay preacher, but with his large and varied busi- 
ness and farm interests, and advanced years, he confines his 
public exhortations to his own neighborhood church. His 
discourse was a plain and pungent and sometimes Barcastic 
and humorous attack on all human substitutes for, and ad- 
ditions to, the revealed word of God. He classed the com- 
plex modern ' theologies 'with the ' mythologies ' of « ild 
while admitting the value of a thorough theological traiu- 
ing, could not help alluding to the learned doctors of divin- 
ity whose preaching yielded few converts, while l Paul 
stole out of jail, converted a whole family, and got back 
so quickly that he was not missed.' 

* Dr. Robinson presided at the funeral obsequies of President 
Garfield, at Cleveland. 



740 THE mOQUAVUY OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

M I confess that the plain and powerful talk of this 
vigorous eld man, whose grip on worldly realities and 
business is remarkable, and who seemed so equally sure 
of the c eternal verities' of the Gospel, with his uncon- 
sciously splendid contempt for any human assumptions of 
divine authority, gave me an impression not at all unfa- 
vorable to the ' Disciples' persuasion. Af tor the preaching- 
was over he asked the congregation to ' 6ing a song,' and 
proceeded, with the aid of two deacons, to administer the 
' Lord's Supper,' as is done every Sunday by the ' Disci- 
ples.'' The ceremony was impressive by its very simplici- 
ty and evident sincerity. After the broken bread had 
been blessed and partaken of, the doctor asked 4 Brother 
Garfield ' to ask a blessing on the wine, and the latter did 
so, with the maimer of one who was performing a simple 
and customary duty. 

" Altogether the services were exceedingly suggestive 
of the apostolic times and of the notion that much might 
be learned from the misunderstood and humble ' Camp- 
bellites.' They gave me a much clearer conception of 
the natural and normal character of Garfield's ' preaching,' 
in his early manhood, and fur this reason had special value 
and significance. And it seemed to me that when a man 
so brilliantly successful in politics is so endeared to all his 
old neighbors, and moves them so deeply, one day, by his 
thrilling expressions of eulogy for the dead heroes of the 
war in which he freely exposed his own life, and the next 
day, among those with whom he has long worshipped in 
simplicity, as an earnest and devotional leader, ho lias a. 
largeness and wholeness of nature and life that inevitably 
draw to him the best sentiments of the people who 
know him best." 



APPENDIX. 



t 

Substantial Sympathy. 

Immediately after the wounding of President Gar- 
field, Cyrus W. Field, of New York City, gave public no- 
tice that he would endeavor to rake by subscription the 
sum of $250,000, to be invested in United States bonds, 
for the benefit of Mrs. Garfield and her family. The 
primary object of this fund was to defray medical and 
other expenses in case the President should live; but 
it was considered all the more desirable and necessary, 
should the wound prove fatal. 

Of the proposed sum, $150,000 were promptly sub- 
scribed ; but further subscriptions were suspended until 
after the President's death, when all classes of citizens 
seemed anxious to contribute to the fund. The amount 
subscribed soon amounted to sufficient to afford the family 
of the late President an annual income, from an in 
ment in United States four per cent, bonds, of abonl 
§1 7,000. 

741 



742 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

II. 

Monument to the Memory of Garfield. 

Before the funeral of the late President Garfield, a 
project was conceived for raising a fund for the erection 
of a fine monument over his remains in Lake View 
Cemetery at Cleveland, Ohio. It was proposed to have 
the fund raised by popular subscription. A Garfield 
Monument Fund Committee was organized at Cleveland. 
That Committee issued the following circular : 

To the People of the United States : 

The movement to secure funds for the erection of a 
monument over the grave of James A. Garfield is being 
responded to from all sections of the country — East, West, 
South and North. In order to make it popular and suc- 
cessful it is desirable and will be necessary for the citizens 
of the different States to immediately organize. The com- 
mittee hereby request all national banks, private bankers, 
savings banks, newspapers and postmasters to call attention 
to the movement by posting notices and otherwise, aud to 
receive contributions and to remit the same to the Second 
National Bank of Cleveland, Ohio, which has been designate 
ed as treasurer of the fund; also to Bend the names and 
office address of all contributors. These names will all 
be recorded m books that will be preserved in the monu- 
ment. All contributions will be receipted for by the Sec- 
ond National Bank. 

J. II. AVade, Joseph Pekkin-*, 

H. B. Paym . J. II. Rhodes. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 74:t 

III. 

President Garfield's Fortitude. 

Colonel Rockwell, General Garfield's intimate personal 
friend and devoted attendant during his long 6truggle for 
life, lias left on record the following account of the mar- 
vellous display of fortitude by the illustrious sufferer 
during the fearful conflict : 

" He was brave, patient and uncomplaining, but never, 
while I was with him, in what could be called good 
spirits. Those who suppose he could have been so, 
don't know the awful character of his wound, and the 
desperate nature of his struggle. I can't remember that 
lie ever attempted to smile but once. We know that he 
was hopeful, but we' learned it mure from the steady, 
brave light in his eyes than from any assurances he gave. 
He seemed determined to waste nothing of his strength, 
but to bend it all to the contest. I think he realized that 
hope lay most in his own will and judgment, and he 
occupied his mind in their exercise. 

" During the first few weeks, his suffering was acute 
and terrible, but through it all the light in his eyes was 
clear, and his courage never seemed even to falter, and 
upon him, rather than anything that could be done for 
him, I built my confidence. Poor man, he had no reason 
to smile, but on the other hand, he rarely permitted him 
self to express in any way the degree of his suffering. 
Once only, while I sat by his bedside fanning him, did ho 
give way to an uncontrolled manifestation of his agony ; 



*44 THE BI0QRA1WY OF 

then, suddenly lifting Lis arms to my neck, lie cried ont, 
in the nervous agitation of the moment, ' Save me.' It, 
came so suddenly that it nearly broke me down, but it 
was as quickly passed, and lying perfectly motionless, 
the look of determination came into bis eye- again, and, 
paying no word, be seemed to settle himself again to the 
silent, single-handed contest he was making. For days 
and days it went on the same. It was an excitement and a 
stimulant to see the evidence M his unfaltering courage, 
and wo lived upon it. The awful time came when we 
could see that there was literally nothing but his will left. 
Strength gone, utterly, lie still lived, but oh, how 
pitiful now, when in the weakness of his suffering he 
would often reach out his hand to lay it on the face of the 
friend by his bedside, and stroke with a caressing move- 
ment and the touch peculiar to the helplessness of an 
inf unt." — Ch ioago In ten- Ocean . 

IV. 

President Garfield, and Fatalism and Coincidences. 

A correspondent of the New York Times, writing of 
General Garfield, while he was a candidate for the Presi- 
dency in 1> V ", said : 

"Those who are familiar with General Garfield say 
that for many yeare he cherished the belief that he would 
no1 live to be older than his father was when he died, and 
that he would die in some ^udden and violent manner. 
His frieuds, with all their persuasion, were net able to 
make bim dismiss thia thought. He would sav in answer 






'I I ' 






I 

VjUMESABRftMGARFi^f 

lfL> UNITED STATES' 
rcr JULY 2-MS8I. 






Sjfl^LiS*- EKEGTE® IJt THE ^LTIJ.1 . 
^SCPOS-, WHEI{E CPIlE8I(T>E}t<r Q^FIELQ WjlS SB. - 



JAME8 A. GARFIELD. 741 

to their claims that such a belief was foolish. ' Jt Beeme 
to mo ;us foolish as it does to you.; I do not know why it 
haunts me. Indeed, it is a thing that is wholly involun- 
tary on my part, and when I try the hardest not to think 
of it, it haunts me most. It comes to me sometimes in 
the night, when all is quiet. I think of my father and 
how he died in the strength of his manhood and left my 
mother to care for a large family of children, and how I 
have- always been without his assistance or advice, and 
then I feel it so strong upon me that the vision is in the 
form of a warning that 1 cannot treat lightly.' 

" For many years General Garfield believed that ho 
should some time fall between cars or be killed in some 
way while traveling. "When he reached the age of his 
father at death and passed that point safely, he seemed to 
forget the idea that had eriven him so much trouble. He 
is now 40, nearly five years older than his father when he 
died. It is said by those who knew the General best that 
he was ever to a greater or less degree a believer in fatal- 
ism. He was a man who invariably had the strongest im- 
pressions, and it is believed that it was an impression that 
prevailed with him for many years that he would be Presi- 
dent some time. He never sought the office and never 
intended to do so. The Times correspondent well re- 
members to have heard him discuss the very matter at 
dinner. lie said : ' The American people are very much 
like one giant human being. The combined intellect 
generally acts like the intellect of a single man when it 
gets ready to act. When the giant wants any man whom 
he has chosen to work for him, he knows just how to let 
',mn know it. If a man offers his services, the giant very 
often rejects them. It is like a maiden asking a man to 
28 



Tin: BIOGRAPHY OF 

marry her. X<> woman is so handsome and witty and ac- 
complished that she can aflord to do tint. Ten chances in 

the dozen, the man will say, if not to the woman herself, at 
least to himself, " I was about to ask you, but I think you 
are just a little too willing ; I believe I'd rather not/' The 
American people like to discover a man. Then tluy 
can claim him as their own by an old and established us- 
age. They will discover him sooner or later, if there is 
anything in him worth discovering. I have more confi- 
dence in the judgment of the united intellect of the Am- 
erican people than in anything else in the world. Great 
men and orators may move and modify it, and knaves and 
charlatans may pervert it, but, sooner or later, the true con- 
clusion will be reached, and right and justice will tri- 
umph.' " 

A correspondent of the Ilartford (Conn.) Times, writ- 
ing at Washington, D. C, on October IS, 1881, relates 
some curious facts in relation to President Garfield's mind. 
lie say a : 

" On the 26th of August, the day on which the late Presi- 
dent's physicians first gave him up as beyond recovery, 
General R I). Mussey, a lawyer of this city, being asked 
whether he expected the President would recover, said ho 
did not, but thought ha would die on the L9th of Septeiu- 
ber, the anniversary of the first day of the battle of ( Ihicka- 
mauga. His prediction postponing death for so long h. 
time attracted considerable attention, and much more com- 
ment since, it being verified. The Times' correspondent 
railed on Gen. Mussey here to-day and obtained from him 
some particulars oi the prediction, lie said: "The Pred 



JAMK8 a Garfield. 749 

dent never told me that he thought he would die on the 
19th, as has been printed in some papers; Marshal Hen- 
ry, a particular friend of his, however, told nn> that the 
President told him that he thought he would die cm the 
19th of November of last year, his forty-ninth birthday. 
Gen. Garfield was never in any way what might be called 
superstitions, though he was a great believer in dab 
quences, and coincidences. The New England stork 
which peopled the West are like him in that respect. 
Garfield's mind was analytical, and he gave such matters 
more attention than most people do. I will give you an 
incident illustrating what I mean. On the 19th of June 
of the present year the Army of the Cumberland (of which 
Gen. Garfield was a distinguished and honored and I a 
humble member) had a grand re-union. Not one of the 
party thought about the date until Judge DeveU6, of 
Massachusetts, in responding to the toast k> The Ladies/ 1 
accidentally referred to it, adding that the selection of the 
date of the dinner was a happy one. in view of the fact that 
it was the anniversary, as far as the date, but not the month, 
was concerned, of one of the largest battles of the Army 
of the Cumberland. 

C "A few minutes afterwards, in speakingto the Presi- 
dent, I asked if he had noticed the similarity of his nom- 
ination with that of Lincoln. He said lie had. And 1, 
without, thinking of it, said, Providence may have the 
same destiny, for you. lie did not answer for awhile, 
remaining silent and thoughtful. Then he said, '* The 
first "Western man elected to the Presidency was Harrison, 
of Indiana. Lincoln was elected in 1S60, and I was 
elected in 1880." Thinking that we had not noticed the 
Jumps of twenty years, he saidj " '40, J 60 and '80, what 



:,n THE BWGJtAPfff <>F 

does tit: t mean' Then, again,' 1 said the President, "look 
at the part Indiana has played in it. Besides having the 
honor itself iii Harrison's case, it was Indiana that turned 
the scales, and made Lincoln the Republican nominee and 
President. It was Indiana by Ben Harrison, a grandson 
of President Harrison, that cast the vote of Indiana 
that made me the nominee and President." Then, tap- 
ping his finger on the hack of his hand, he repeated 
1840, 1S60, 1880. 'Did he continue the sequencer 
'Oh yes, said he ; "Harrison died while he was President, 
and in the White House ; Lincoln was assassinated while 
he was President; what will become of me?" Of 
course, this put us all, or at least the little group that 
sat about him, thinking of coincidences, and T asked 
the President if he had noticed a Shakespearean quota 
tion on Marcus Ward's business calendar of the date 
he was nominated for President. He said he had re- 
ceived at least fifty of them from different persons; all 
of whom called his attention to the peculiarity of the 
quotation. It was from "Julius Caesar :" " Oh, that a man 
might know the end of this day's business ere it comes." 
In view of all the circumstances, this was a remarkable 
incident, and it had considerable effect oh the President. 
While he did no< believe in Special acts of Providence, he 
liked to talk of .such things, and reason out conclusions. 
The incident following his nomination was in the same 
line. I published it during the campaign, after securing 
the President's permission, though I then stated it was 
on information furnished by General Swaim. It was 
furnished by Swaim first, and by the President after- 
ward. 

"'While on hi. wav to the building in which the 



./ i )//:.s i. GARFIELD. 

convention was held at Chicago, a man handed him on 

the streets a circular or dodger of some kind. II- 
he lirst supposed it was a railroad advertisement. He was 
about throwing it away, when he noticed that it had ex 
tracts from the Scriptures on it. Not having time to 
read it then, he crushed it up, and put it into his pocket 
On the close of that day he was nominated, and before 
he left the convention he had received hundreds of tele 
grams extending congratulations. Going to his room, he 
emptied his pockets on a table, telling Swaim to save 
those that should be saved, and destroy those that should 
be destroyed. General Swaim was doing this when he 
saw the crumpled paper. Opening it, he read it, and was 
so struck with the quotations that he saved it until 
General Garfield returned, when he read it. Garfield 
told me it made the hair of his head almost stand on end. 
There were two quotations. The first was this: "The. 
stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the 
head of the corner." The other was : "Neither is there 
salvation in any other : For there is none other name 
under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be 
saved." The connection of the two quotations lay in the 
fact that Garfield had never been spoken of a- a candi- 
date before the convention, and that he was about the only 
man who could bring the factions of the party a- . 
then together, and march through to victory. He coin 
biried the party as hardly another man could. The l'.'th 
was an important date in his life. It was the day of his 
birth, of his greatest triumphs, and finally it was the date 
of his death.' " 



THE BIOGBAPIll >>t 



Honored w Vi r 

Many tributes of honor, reverence ;md love, in poetic 
effusions, were offered to the memory of the late President 
after bis death. The last poem, it is believed, written by 

the l;it<- 1 >r. J. G. Holland. following, on the death 

of the illustrious statesman, in which the public horror is 
portrayed : 

•• A wasp flew out upon our fairest son. 

And stung him to the quick with poisoned shaft, 

The while !.e chatted carelessly ami laughed. 

And knew not of the fateful mischief done. 

And life, amid onr love begnii. 

Envenomed by tin- insects hellish craft, 

AVas drunk by Death in one long feverish draught, 

And he was lost — our precious, priceless one! 

Oli. mystery of Mind, remorf 

Oh, cruel end of a most causeless hate ! 

That life so mean >h<>uld murder I great I 

"What is there left to us who think and feel, 

"Who have do remedy, and no appeal, 

But damn the was}) and crush him under heel ?" 

Docl : Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote for the (Gar- 
field Memorial number of the Boston Daily Globe, t la- 
following poem, entitle 

: iik Bubial. 

I. 

Fallen with autumn's falling leaf 
l.i, summer's noon was p 



JAMES A QAtlFIELD. 74g 

Our friend, our guide, our trusted chief, — 
What words can match a woe bo east, 

And whose the chartered claim to speak 
The sacred grief where all have part, 

When sorrow saddens e,very pheck 
And broods in every aching heart '. 

Vet nature prompts the burning phrase 
That thrills the hushed and shrouded hall, 

The loud lament, the sorrow ing praise, 
The silent tear that love lets fall. 

In loftiest verse, in lowliest rhyme 

Shall strive unblamed the minstrel choir,— 

The singers of the new-born time 

And trembling age with outworn lyre. 

.No room for pride, no place for blame — ■ 
We fling our blossoms on the grave, 

Pale, — seen t less, — faded, — all we claim, 
This only, — what we had we gave. 

Ah, could the grief of all who mourn 

Blend in one voice its bitter cry. 
The wail to heaven's high arches borne 

Would echo through the caverned sky. 

II. 

O happiest land, whose peacef il choice 
Fills witli a breath its empty throne! 

God, speaking through thy people's voice 
Has made that voice for once his own. 

No angry passion shakes tin: State 
Whose weary servant seeks for rest, — 

And who could fear that M-ouliiie hate 
Would strike at that unguarded breast '. 



734 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

He stands unconscious of las doom, 
In manly strength, erect, serene, — 

Around him summer spreads her bloom, — 
llf falls, —what horror clothes the scene 1 

How swift the sudden Hash of woe 

Where all was bright as childhood's dream I 

As if from heaven's ethereal bow 

Had leaped the lightning's arrowy gleam. 

Blot the foul deed from history's page, — 

Let not the all-betraying sun 
Blush for the day that stains an age 

When murder's blackest wreath was won. 

III. 

Pale on his couch the sufferer lies, 
The weary battleground of pain: 

Love tends his pillow, science tries 
Her every art, alas ! in vain. 

The strife endures how lone! how lonir! 

Life, death, seem balanced in the scale, 
While round his bed a viewless throng 

Awaits each morrow's chanmnir tale. 

In realms the desert ocean parts 

What myriads watch with tear-filled eyes, 

Ilis pulse-beats echoing in their hearts, 
His breathings counted with their sighs! 

Slowly filestores of life are spent, 

Yel hope still battles with despair, — 

Will Heaven not yield when knees are bent i 
Answer, () Thou that hearest prayer! 

Bnl silent is the bra/.ell sky, 

( >n sweeps the meteor's threatening train, — 



JAMtiS A. GAliFTELD. 

Unserving Nature's mute reply, 
Bound in her adamantine chain. 

Not ours the verdict to decide 

Whom death shall claim or skill shall save; 
The here's life though Heaven denied 

It gave our land a martyr's grave. 

Nor count the teaching vainly sent 

How human hearts their griefs may share, — 

The lesson woman's love has lent 

What hope may do, what faith can bear! 

Farewell ! the leaf-strown earth enfolds 

Our stay, our pride, our hopes, our fears, 
• And autumn's golden sun beholds 
A nation bowed, a world iu tears. 

Louisa Parsons Hopkins, author of " Motherhood," 
wrote the following poem for the memorial number of 
the Globe, entitled 

" Laurel — Cypress." 
March 1, 1881. 

He stands at the Capitol's portal 

With lifted hand. 
The vows of Go 1 are upon him 
For the trust of the land ; 
Chief true and grand! 

His manhood turns in its glory 

To womanhood. 
To his wife and mother he yearns 

From the multitude : 

Heart true and good ! 



756 THE BIOGBAPET OF 

He crowns them before the people 

With kiss of love. 
See it. ye men, and shout, 
Full hearts will out ; 
Rend the heavens above ! 



September 23, 1881. 

He lies in the wide rotunda 
With folded palms ; 
" Wounded for our transgressions." 
Comrades in arms, 
Spread ye his pall, 
For the peace of all ! 

The thronging crowds have passed him, 

With falling tear ; 
A queenly woman's garland 

Upon his bier ; 

Knight without fear, 

Man brave and dear ! 

In this his martyr-glory 

Leave him alone; 
For his kiss-crowned wife is coming. 

Though dead — he ha.s known 

She would come — his own, — 

To share his throne. 

Mrs. Julia Ward Howe wrote the following poem for 
the Boston Globt : 

Our sorrow sends its shadow round the Earth. 
So brave, so true ! A hero from his birth ! 
The plumes of Empire moult, in mourning draped, 
The lightning's rne&oaffe hv ox\r tears is shaped. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 7M 

Life's vanities that blossom for an hour 
Heap on his funeral car their fleeting flower. 
Commerce forsakes her temples, blind and dim, 
And pours her tardy gold, to homage him. 

The notes of grief to age familiar grow, 
Before the sad privations all must know ; 
But the majestic cadence which we hear 
To-day, is new in either hemisphere. 

What crown is this, high hung and hard to reach, 
Whose glory so outshines our laboring speech ? 
* «The crown of Honor, pure and unbetrayed : 
He wins the spurs who bears the knightly aid. 

While royal babes incipient empire hold, 
And, for bare promise, grasp the sceptre's gold, 
This man such service to his age did bring 
That they who knew him servant, hailed him king. 

In poverty his infant couch was spread ; 
His tender hands soon wrought for daily bread ; 
But from the cradle's bound his willing feet 
The errand of the moment went to meet. 

When learning's page unfolded to his view, 
The quick disciple straight a teacher grew ; 
And when the light of freedom stirred the land, 
Armed was his heart and resolute his hand. 

Wise in the council, stalwart in the field ! 
Such rank supreme a workman's hut may yield. 
His onward steps like measured marbles show. 
Climbing the height where God's great flame doth 
glow. 

Ah ! TCo;e of joy, that hid'st a thorn so sharp ! 
Ah ! Golden woof that meet'st a severed warp ! 



758 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Ah ! Solemn comfort that the stars rain down ! 
The Hero's garland his. the Martyr's crown ! 
Newport, September 25, 1881. 

The following beautiful poems appeared in different 
journals : 

After All's Done. 

BY THE AUTHOR OF ".JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN." 

His wife iisked where was his pain. Garfield answered, 
"Darling, even to live is pain." ** 

To live was pain — to die is peace ; 

Falling asleep in tender arms ; 

Ended vain hopes, more vain alarms, 
Blind struggles for impossible ease. 

Yes, life was loss, and death is gain ; 

The martyr's blood the church's seed. 

O Christian, to Christ's world-large creed 
Faithful till death ! — die, rise and reign ! 

Reign, king-like, o'er the souls of men ; 
Shame them from paltry lust of gold, 
From public honor bought and sold, 

From venal lie of tongue or pen. 

Reign in the hearts of women brave, 

Fit mothers of the men to be; 

Like that true woman loved by thee, 
Whom God so loved He could not save. 

But thou art saved — her hero ! Thine 

The glorious rest of battle won, 

A setting of the mid-day sun. 
And lo ! the stars burst out and shine. 



JAMES A. &ABFIBLD. 

No long dull twilight of weak age, 
Morn's glow forgot in paisty night. 
Thy record was full writ in light, 

And then— thine angel closed the page. 

All's clone, all's said. The tale is told. 
Across the ocean hands clasp hands: 
One voice of weeping from all lands 

Binds the new world unto the old : 

Then— silence ; and we go our ways, 
Work our small work for good or ill : 
But thou, through whom the Master's will 

Was done, and didst it, to His praise, 

Go straightway into eternal light ! 

On earth among the immortal dead ; 

In heaven— that mystery none hath read : 
We walk by faith, and not by sight. 

But this we know, or feel, half known : 
He who from evil brings forth good, 
His message, although writ in blood, 

Has left upon thy funeral stone. 

Breaking the "News." 

" Who will break the news to mother ?" 

Was the daughter's grieving cry 
At the tidings that a brother 

Had at last been called to die. 
"She will be bereft, heartbroken. 

When she hears that life has fled ; 
Who will break the news to mother? 

Who will tell her James is dead F 1 

On her couch she sweetly slumbered. 
Dreaming pleasant dreams of him ; 



fOO THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Almost eighty years she numbered, 
And her eyes with age were dim. 

Who could bear to see the sorrow 
That would bow that silver head ? 

Who could listen to her weeping 

Wnen they told her James was dead? 

Waiting for her feeble fingers, 

On the shelf the message lay, 
That should pierce her loving bosom 

On that fair September day. 
And they passed her room in silence, 

Where the Holy Book she read ; 
In the sunlight of the morning 

She must learn that James was dead. 

With a slow but gentle stepping 

Came the unsuspecting dame, 
To the presence of the children 

Who were whispering her name; 
And they tried their grief to smother, 

As she met their troubled sight ; 
\Vho could break the news to mother 

That her darling died last night ? 

That beside the moaning ocean 

He was lying still and calm, 
With tin.' waves' eternal motion 

Chanting his funereal psalm. 
That while white-winged ships were sailing 

Homeward to a flowery lea. 
He was drifting, darkly drifting, 

Out upon death's shadowy sea. 

And they broke the news to mother, 
Arid she hi- 1 her face in woe, 



jami:s a. <;m; FIELD. ' nl 

And she wept, alas ! how sorely, 

For the precious one laid low. 
But with trembling voice she faltered, 

Ere her tears had ceased to run, 
With her faith in God unaltered : 
f| Let the dear Lord's will be done." 

Such a son, and such a mother, 

Can endure to part awhile ; 
And the sisters of this brother 

Yet shall greet him with a smile. 
He was scholar, soldier, statesman, 

He was proud Columbia's head; 
But that fairer title, " Christian," 

Clings about this hero dead. 

" Who will break the news to mother 3" 

No one now has need to say ; 
She has knelt beside his coffin, 

She has seen it borne away. 
There will come no " news" for " mother," 

Henceforth, till her crown is won, 
From the princely child who kissed her 

In the gaze of Washington. 

The Last Bulletin. 

BY MARIE E. BLAKE. 

Bay after day, as morning skies did flame — 

" How fares our Liege T we cried with eager breath, 
" How fares our Liege, who fights the fight with 
death C 

And ever with fresh hope the answer came, 

Until that solemn midnight when the clang 
Of woful bells tolled out their tale of dread. 



703 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

That he, the good and gifted one, was dead, 
And through his weeping land the message rang. 

Thon in the darkness every heart was bowed : 
While thinking on the direful ways of Fate, 
Where Love could thus he overthrown by Hate, — 

" So wrong hath conquered right !"' we said aloud : 

" If this be life, what matter how it flies ; 
What strength or power or glory crowns a name , 
What noble meed of honesty or fame, 

Since all these gifts were his. — and there he lies 

Blighted by malice ! Woe's the day ! and dead 
While yet the fields of his most golden prime 
Are rich in all the pomp of summer time, 

With all their ripening wealth unharvested !" 



Thus fares it with our Liege I Nay, doubting soul, 
Not thus ; but grandly raised to nobler height 
Of strength and power and most divine delight, 

— At one swift breath made beautiful and whole ! 

Nor mocked by broken hope or shattered plan. 
By some pale ghost of duty left undone, 
By haunting moments wasted one by one, 

Bui crowned with that which best becometh man. 

Holding with brimming hands his heart's desire ; 
While the tierce light of these last glorious days, 
Blazing on each white line of thought and ways, 

Touches his record with immortal fire! 

Boston, September 35, 1881. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 763 

President Garfield. 

BY HARRIET MABEL 8PALDINO. 

" Dead ! dead ! a nation's pitying tears 

Flow o'er our land from mount to sea : 
.With drooping folds her Hag appears, 

Her flag— the emblem of the free. 
O'er our fair shore, in tower and hall, • 

Dark elouds of heaviest sorrow sleep, 
Flow fast, ! tears ! let one and all, 
Like children, for their father, weep. 

II. 

Oh, great, true heart, that stored no wrong, 

Treasured no base nor ill intent, 
What powers were thine of hope so strong ! 

What virtues in thy nature blent ! 
Dead ! dead ! and still from mount to Bttand 

Comes the sad wail, the soul-breathed prayer, 
The badge of mourning drapes our land, 

And all one mutual sorrow share. 

III. 

Oh ! could the bugle's ringing cry 

Wake him to join the quivering fray, 
How grandly would his voice reply, 

As on red rhickamauga's day. 
But now our tears unbidden fall. 

O'er him let party tumults cease, 
And strive to guard as brother.-, all. 

His creed— the holy creed of peace. 



:<;■» THE i;io,i;.\t'ii) OF 



IV. 



80 bring the flowers, and lay them low 

O'er the white hands in rest serene, 
With dark leaves crown the lilies' snow, 

Our own heart-tears will keep them green. 
For hini one common grief we bear. 

For him the s;id dirge sinks and swells, 
For him a world's united prayer. 

White wreaths and snowy immortelles. 

V. 

Toll ! toll ! O bells ! from land to sea, 

For him, our fallen chieftain, toll : 
Toll for that chainlesj spirit free, 

For him, that grand, departed soul. 
The cross is laid forever down, 

Fought is the tight, the victory won, 
Christ, with di vines t honors crown 

Thy chosen and earth's martyred son ! 

In Mkmoki.vm. 
General James Abraham (iaukikld, 

PRESIDENT OF TUE CKITED STATES. 

Quills pure and strong from God still wing their Might 
And dwell among us for a little space ; 
N\ lioso loves truth may in their beauty trace 
The semblances of the everlasting light. 

Too soon the beam of truth is quenched in night. 
The nations in their shame their ga/.e abase, 
Mourning that men should scorn the Heaven-sent 

grace. 
And set all good below their narrow spite, 



JAMES i Q [RFIELD. 

The great may perish, but their name endures, 

A mountain beacon by whose flame we find 
The path that leads us high above the plain. 
So Garfield to Columbia's sons assures 
A high ensample of the equal mind, 
As modest in success as brave in pain. 

J. W. 



VI. 
A Medical Review. 

The following is a review, by Dr. D. W. Bliss, of the 
medical treatment of President Garfield, published in 
the Medical Record, after the President's death : 

"The great interest which has been manifested by 
the medical public in the surgical history of the case of 
President Garfield, and my close and direct connection 
with it as surgeon in charge, from the time I was sum- 
moned until his death, imposes upon me the obligation of 
giving, even at this early date, a general summary of the 
salient points connected with its diagnosis, treatment 
and pathology. 

u It seems important at this time, in view of an im- 
plied demand on the part of my professional brethren 
throughout the country, that at the risk of anticipating 
the complete and technical report, which will appear in 
due time under the editorial direction of J. J. Woodward, 
Surgeon United States Army, and signed by all the gen- 
tlemen associated with me, that I should present such 
data as may serve to give the leading facts of the general 
plan of management of the case, the reasons t<>v making 



766 THE MOGRArilY OF 

the diagnosis, and such other points as were developed 
in its study, which may serve to explain the most im- 
portant autopsical lesions, the report of which accom- 
panies this paper. 

• "Perhaps these conditions can be fulfilled in no better 
way than by a summary in which the main and important 
"data are given in the form of a general medical history. 
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to state at this point that I 
shall not undertake to reproduce the daily bulletins, nor 
a minute history of the dietetics, as they are not neces- 
sary to enable the profession to comprehend the general 
treatment as applied to the case in view of the erroneous 
diagnosis made, or to the conditions presented by the 
autopsy. 

" Immediately after the shooting of President Gar- 
field, on the morning of July 2, I was summoned by the 
Secretary of War to take charge of the case. I was con- 
ducted to an upper room in the building, where I found 
the President lying upon a mattress, in a semi-prone posi- 
tion on the left side. lie presented the appearance of 
perfect collapse, the lines of expression were lost, there 
was extreme pallor, sighing respiration (about eight or 
ten per minute), pulse exceedingly small, feeble, and 
frequent, and ranging about 120. The ingcsta lying upon 
the mattress indicated that he had recently vomited, and 
upon mentioning the fact the President replied that he 
had not ; but assurances from the physicians and others, 
with the evidences before me, Indicated that the emesia 
had taken place while he was unconscious. Large beads 
of perspiration stood upon his face, forehead, hands 
and forearms. 

" There were present at that time Dr. Bmitb. Townsenclj 



JAMES A. <; A A7-7 /•'//>. 

fclie Health Officer of the District, and Dr. Purvis. The 
former, who was the first physician \>> reach the wounded 
President, informed me that he had administered half mi 

ounce of brandy and a dram of aromatic spirit* "i 
ammonia internally. The President's coat had previously 
been removed ; the remainder of his clotlting was intact, 
except that over the region of the wound, which was -" 
arranged as to expose the point of entrance of the ball. 

'* The President complained of a sense of weight and 
numbness, and subsequently of a tingling sensation and 
pain in the lower extremities. With a view of exploring 
the wound to ascertain the course of the ball and th<- or- 
gans involved in its passage, I introduced a Nelatoii probe 
which took a direction downward and forward, on a line 
which would represent a point of exit four inches to the 
right, and nearly directly opposite to the umbilicus. Tin- 
point of entrance of the ball, which was oval and sharply 
cut, was on the right side, four inches from the median 
line of the spine, and on a line with the eleventh rib. A 
slight discharge of blood was oozing from this orifice, and 
had soiled the clothing. I passed the probe in the direction 
previously indicated, through the tenth intercostal space 
for a distance of three an 1 one-half inches from the surface 
of the body to what appeared to bea cavity, and I was unable 
to detect any foreign substance beyond the rib to indicate 
the presence of fragments of bone or the missile. In at 
tempting to withdraw the probe it became engaged be- 
tween the fractured fragments and the end of the rib, and 
could not be liberated until pressure was made npoi 
sternal end of the rib, so as to slightly elevate it- frac4 
extremity. I then passed the little finger of mvlcft hand 
to its full extent into the wound, which developed the 



?Ofl 'I'll!' BIOO UM'IIY OF 

character and extent of the fracture of the rib,' and was 

only able t«> reach a point on a line with the inner Sin-face 
of the rili, where it came in contact with what appeared to 
be lacerated tissue or comparatively firm congnla, probably 
the latter. After withdrawing my finger i made an ex- 
ploration With a long, flexible silver probe, which I 
Suitably curved before entering, and gently passed it down- 
ward and forward, and downward and backward in several 
directions, with a view of indicating the course of the ball, 
if it had been deflected by contact with the rib, and meet- 
ing with resistance from soft parts 1 desisted and excluded 
the probability of deflection, being inclined to the opinion 
that the ball had entered the liver, which, if true, would 
not warrant further exploration in that direction. 

" By this time a large number of physicians had gath- 
ered in the room, and I gave to them a hurried account of 
my examination, and expressed the opinion that no fur- 
ther explorations should be made during the stage of col- 
lapse, and that stimulants by the stomach should not at 
that time be given, as the president was suffering from 
constant nausea, and in his condition of collapse absorption 
would not take place, and further, that they would become 
a source of additional irritation. In these opinions, ex- 
pressed at the council in one corner of the room, the phy- 
sicians concurred. The gentlemen in attendance at this 
time, so far as I can recollect, were Drs. Townsend, Purvis, 
Reyburn, fforris, Lincoln, and Ford. 

"The President repeatedly requested that he be taken 

to the White House, and after further consultation and 
a full understanding of the manner and detail of his trans- 
fer, his speedy removal wa.s agreed upon. Temporary 

dressings were applied to the wound, when the President 



JAMES A. QAIIFIELD. 

was lifted on to the mattress, carefully placed upon a 
stretcher, coitveyod down stairs, and placed in an ambu- 
lance in waiting; The vehicle was driven with great care 
over the rough pavement of Sixth street, about 4o yards 1 
distance, until reaching the smooth asphalt pavement of 
Pennsylvania Avenue. The great rush of people in the 
excitement made it necessary to move rapidly. On the 
way there was no disagreeable motion in the carriage, 
which fact is attested by Dr. Townsend and ethers who 
accompanied me in the ambulance. On inquiry, the Presi- 
dent replied that the motions of the carriage did not give 
him any discomfort. At the street railroad crossings at 
Seventh and Fourteenth streets the vehicle was driven 
with exceeding caution, and with scarcely an uncomfor- 
table motion. He was then taken in the same manner as 
before to his room, and placed with extreme caution on 
the low family bed. The room is known as the south- 
west, or family room of the house. On his arrival thither 
a careful examination was made of his condition. The 
pulse continued feeble, frequent, and extremely compress- 
ible; the respiration was slow and sighing: extremities 
and surface cold, with occasional vomiting and profile 
perspiration over the entire body ; voice husky, with con- 
stant complaint of severe pains in the inferior extremities. 
He was placed upon his right side, so as to make the 
wound dependent, to facilitate drainage and keep the vis- 
cera in contact with the injured parietes, with a view of 
preventing further hemorrhage and looking to the possi- 
ble adhesion of the injured parts to the peritoneum. A: 
ter consultation it was deemed improper to remove the 
clothing, as such a proceeding would thus increase the 
danovrs. Water was given, in small quantities, of ten re- 



770 THE BtOQRAPHl. OJf 

peated. This was necessitated by the extreme thirst 
from which the patient suffered. 

•' A hypodermic injection of one-eighth of a grain of 
morphine and one-eightieth of a grain of atropia was ad- 
ministered to control the pain in the extremities, and as a 
more permanent stimulant to assist reaction. The place 
selected for injection was the dorsal aspect of the fore- 
arm. This was about 10 a. m. July 2. 

'• There was hut little change in the condition of the 
patient, either in temperature, respiration or pulse, until 
about eleven o'clock, when it was determined to repeat 
the morphine in the dose of one-sixth of a grain, the 
atropia being omitted. This soon had the effect of 
modifying the pain and discomfort, and the respiration 
became more frequent and easy. The pulse responded 
but little to the stimulants. Nausea and vomiting con- 
tinued at intervals of thirty minutes during tjje entire 
■ lay and until 7 p. m., when it became less frequent, with 
lese retelling- -in fact, being simply ;. regurgitation of the 
fluids of the stomach. This condition continued at longer 
intervals, until six o'clock the following morning. 

" At 5.30 p.m., in accordance with a previous under- 
standing with the physicians, the clothing was removed by 
being cut from the body in such a manner as to prevent 
any motion or agitation, and to permit the more suc- 
cessful application of >\v\ heat by warm llannels to the 
entire body, which had been imperfectly accomplished 
before. Upon examination, a well-defined held of dull- 
over the region of the wound, thought to be due to 
hemorrhage in the substance of the liver, along the sup- 
posed track of the ball, extended seven and one-half 



JAMES A. GAltFlELD. 771 

inches antero-posteriorly and five and one-half inches 
lateral 1 j. 

" The urine was retained until 6 o'clock p. m., when a 
flexible, velvet-eyed catheter was introduced, and about tax 
ounces of normal urine drawn. During the remainder 
of his illness, the urine was voided without restraint, and 
frequent careful examinations were made, proving the ah- 
sence of albumen or other significant abnormal ingre- 
dients. A spontaneous evacuation of the bowels took 
place on July 3, which was natural in character and free 
from blood or other foreign matter. After this, and during 
the entire period of his illness, the President was not sub- 
ject to diarrhoea, and his movements were either spon- 
taneous or regulated by enemata. The only exception to 
this was that, during the last few days of his illness, 
occasional small involuntary evacuations took place, which 
seemed to depend upon the existence of large hemor- 
rhoids, which, from their size and locality, produced dila- 
tation and partial paralysis of the sphincter muscle, the 
evacuation always occurring in an effort to expel flatus. 

"At 10 p. m. the pulse was 158, temperature 0»'>.r> . 
respiration 35, which was the most critical period attend- 
ing the collapse. At 11.20 p.m., the evidences of reaction 
began to manifest themselves. 

"When the pulse had diminished to 120, the tem- 
perature had risen to 98° Fahrenheit, and the respiration 
was 18. The carbolized absorbent cotton, which had 
previously sealed the wound, having become displaced, 
was reapplied. 

" Until 2 p. m. of July 3, the variations of pulse were 
comparatively slight, ranging from 104 to 120. the res- 
piration beino- normal. 
20 



;;■*> Tee biogkafiiy ot { 

" Tho patient slept at short intervals, generally arous- 
ing with an effort at regurgitation of the contents of the 
stomach, but otherwise expressed a feeling of ccgnfort and 
gave evidences of rest. During ihe night, he seemed to 
l>e refreshed, and was comparatively free from pain. 
There was no time after my lir^t visit, up to this period, 
that the patient was not perfectly rational, and often 
made brief, pertinent inquiries as to the character of 'the 
wound and his condition. 

At the evening consultation July 2 (7 r. m.) the 
opinion was expressed by some of the medical gentlemen 
invited to the case, that internal hemorrhage had taken 
place, and that he would not survive the night, and ex- 
pressed those views to the council. Tho symptoms of 
profound collapse were so gravo that Surgeon-General 
Wales was induced to express the opinion that tho Presi- 
dent was dying. 

" The consultations heretofore referred to were, as a 
matter of course, held in the adjoining room. Only 
three or four physicians of the number present were 
invited to visit the bedside on each occasion to make per- 
sonal examinations, to verify tho reported progress, and 
enable them to intelligently advise the council. 

"Tho gentlemen invited by me to visit tho bedside 
were Surgeon-General Wales, Surgeon J. J. Woodward 
and Dr. Reyburn. On that occasion, tho opinion was ex 
pressed that the field of dullness heretofore referred to, 
ihe boundaries of which were well defined, was thought 
to be <luo to hemorrhage in the substance of the liver, 
from the passage of the ball into or thronph it. The. 
opinion obtained, and was so expressed to the council, 
that internal hemorrhage was then taking place, and that 



./I. !//•>• .1. ti.SUFin IK 77:: 

the extreme prostration and feebleness of the respiration 
were duo to that cause, and that the President would not 
survive the night. 

" There was some oozing of dark venous blood durin«- 
the entire night, sufficient to saturate the oarbolized 
cotton, and stain the bed. On the following mom inn-, 
the hemorrhage had entirely ceased, and the dressings 
became adherent to the skin. 

" All the physicians visited the White House at 8 a. m. 
July 3, for the morning consultation, agreeably to a 
previous understanding that such should be the case if 
the President survived the night. 

"At this consultation Surgeon-General Barnes and 
Surgeon Yv'oodward, United States Army, Dr. Reybnrn 
and Dr. N. S. Lin coin, visited the bedside of the patient with 
me,with a view T of making the necessary examinations, dress- 
ing the wound and of reporting results to the other mem- 
bers of the council. The patient was found with a pulse 
of 115; the temperature was nearly normal, as was the 
respiration. lie was cheerful, gave evidence of being 
rested, and made definite inquiries regarding his condition 
and prospects. The use of morphine hypodermicnlly, in 
doses of sufficient quantities to control the pain in the ex- 
tremities was advised, and it was agreed that the patient 
should continue to occupy the position on his right side as 
before directed, so far as was possible ; and that the Wuiind 
should be exposed only when the dressings became disar- 
ranged ; and that their character should not be changed. 

"Immediately after the consultation, the .subject of 
medical attendance was considered by the President. The 
only persons present were, besides the President, Mr<. 
(nnCield. and myself. He then formally placed himself nn- 



774 the Biography otf 

der ruy professional care, ami requested me to select my 
counsel the result of which is well known. lie also de- 
sired me to individually thank the large number.bf physi- 
cians who had composed the council up to that time, which 
I accordingly did, 

••"The primary reaction reached its highest point of tem- 
perature, pulse and respiration at 2 p.m., on Sunday, July 3. 
Slight tympanites was detected, but no pain on pressure, 
nor any marked rigidity of the abdominal walls. These 
were the only symptoms which pointed to the existence of 
peritonitis throughout the whole course of the case, and 
the spontaneous movement of the bowels, already noted, 
was an additional evidence that the peritoneum was not 
involved. 

" At 10.45 p.m., the pulse had gradually increased in 
frequency until it reached 120. The temperature re- 
mained at 100, and respiration at 20. At this time Dr. D. 
Hayes Agnew, of Philadelphia, and Dr. Frank II. Hamil- 
ton, of New York, were summoned to visit the patient in 
consultation. Dr. Agnew arrived about 4 o'clock the fol- 
lowing morning, July 4, and Dr. Hamilton at 6 a.m.. 
They were presented to the President formally at the con- 
sultation, 8.15 a.m., July 4, at which time the pulse was 
104, temperature 99.4°, and respiration 19. lie had passed 
a comparatively comfortable night, awakening every 20 
or 30 minutes, taking water or liquid nourishment in small 
quantities each time, and dropping quickly to rest. The 
nausea had quite subsided, and the pain and soreness of 
the lower extremities was measurably controlled by the 
administration of morphia, which was continued in quar- 
ter-grain doses each evening, administered hypodermical- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. ??;, 

" A careful review of the case from the time I first 
saw the President was given to these gentlemen^ with the 
request that they, with the data before them, examine the 
case thoroughly, as though it was their own, and freely ex 
press their views of the character and gravity of the in- 
jury and the course of treatment of the case up to that 
time. I also gave them a detailed account of the explora- 
tions made in the wound, and the unsettled convictions as 
then held as to the course of the missile and the organs in- 
volved in the injury. They individually examined the 
wound with great care. These examinations consisted in 
the introduction, in different directions, of probes, flexible 
bougies, in order, if possible, to determine the coilrs< 
the ball. With the evidences developed by this personal 
examination, together with the complete history of the 
shooting of the President, and the progress <>f the symp- 
toms for the first 47 hours, they proceeded to discuss the 
possible course of the ball and organs involved, viz., 
whether it passed directly forward into or through the 
liver, or was deflected backward at a right angle BO as to in- 
volve the spinal column, or downward behind the perito- 
neum toward the pelvic cavity. Carefully weighing all the 
evidences, the more prominent symptoms upon which the 
diagnosis was based are presented in the following cider : 
The relative position of the assassin to the President at 
the time of the shooting, the direction of the ball through 
the tissues, so far as safe exploration could determine, grad- 
ual subsidence or modification of pain and hyperesthesia 
of the feet and scrotum; the repeated unsuccessful efforts 
to pass a probe or flexible instrument more than one-half 
inch in any direction beyond the fractured rib, except m 
a direction downward, a little forward and anterior to the 



776 THE BIOGRAPHY 

twelfth rib, a distance of about two inches. The (act also 
was considered that explorations had twice been made 
with the linger — one by m;. .:.- . .<-hed the 

injured President, and subsequently by Surgeon-General 
Wales, of the Navy, on the occasion of the consultation on 
the evening of July 2 ; and in each instance it was found 
impossible to successfully explore by that means beyond 
the inner border of the fractured rib, so as to determine, 
with accuracy, the course of the ball, or even the condition 
of the tissues indicated by the end of the finger. Nor did 
thev underestimate the significance of the profound shock, 
nor the unusual period of collapse which followed and 
seemed to point to extensive lesion of important viscera. 
However, that the kidneys, intestine, and peritoneum were 
not immediately involved was made patent by the unre- 
strained passage of normal urine at proper intervals, the 
spontaneous movement from the bowels of natural f 
the frequent discharge of flatus, and the absence of other 
symptoms of peritonitis. With all these facts before them 
it was impossible to determine positively the course taken 
by the ball. The indications pointed to a downward course 
of the ball into the pelvic cavity. Upon careful consider- 
ation of the foregoing facts and of the opinions expr< 
by the distinguished counsel, we were inclined to re- 
cede from the opinion at first adopted regarding the .-ap- 
posed passage of the ball through the liver. The propri- 
ety of making extensive incisions and dissections s<> 
explore the fractured ribs and to remove as much as might 
be necessary to reveal the true course of the ball, was duly 
i. Rut the opinion was maintained that the fa- 
vorable prog : the President thus far did not warrant 
any interference, and, further, Buch an operation would 



IAMBS 1 GARFIELD. 

seriously complicate the case and diminish the 

of recovery. The facts revealed by the ant >nfirai 

the wisdom of tho course pursned. With this view all the 

surgeons concurred. 

"The subsequent history of the case, which pro 
that the liver, kidneys, the intestines, and the larg 
had escaped serious injury, as well as the gradual subsi- 
dence of the nervous disturbance of the lower extremities, 
tho almost entire absence of pain in the back or that por- 
tion of the body in which the track existed, together with 
a pus-sac which dissected its course down behind the peri- 
toneum into the right iliac fossa, was but corroborative, 
and naturally misled our judgments into an erroneous 
diagnosis. 

" On the evening of July -i, the pain, hypenesth 
and vomiting had nearly disappeared, soreness of the 
feet supervening and continuing for some days. 

" The case progressed, with slight fluctuations, up to 
July 23, when a rigor occurred at 7 P. m., followed by a 
pulse of 124, respiration 26, and temperature 104° Fahren- 
heit. Two days previous to this, a pus-sac was observed in 
the common integument, extending down below thu twelfth 
rib toward the erector spiuae muscle, and underneath the 
latissimus dor.-i, and was carefully evacuated by gentle 
pressure into the original opening on the occasion o: 
dressing. We did not feel satisfied that this superficial 
and limited collection of pus, which was so ruidily 
evacuated, Mas the principal cause of the aggravation ot 
the symptoms present. However, a free incision was 
made into the pus-sac. which afforded a more direct 
dependent channel to the fractured rib, from which u 
small fragment of bene wms removed, 



773 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

" Pressure made backward and upward upon the ab- 
dominal wall, between the umbilicus and anterior spine, 
gave exit to a flow of peculiarly white and firm pus. I 
remarked at the time to the council that the appearance 
of this pus gave assurance that it had never been exposed 
to the air, and must have come from a deep-seated source. 

" After this operation, the improvement was not as 
prompt as we had reason to expect, and on the 2Gth of 
Jul}', the opening between the fractured ends of the 
eleventh rib was enlarged, and a small detached portion 
was removed. This facilitated the discharge of pus, and, 
as a result, a more uniform condition of the symptoms 
were maintained k until about August 6, when slight 
febrile exacerbations were observed, which continued to 
be manifest until the operation was made to afford a more 
free passage of pus from the supposed track of the ball. 
The necessity of the operation was more plainly devel- 
oped by passing a flexible catheter through the opening 
previously made, which readily coursed toward the crest 
of the ilium, a distance of about seven inches. This 
cavity was evacuated twice daily by passing through the 
catheter, previously inserted in the track, an aqueous 
solution of permanganate of potash from a small hand 
fountain slightly elevated, the water and pus returning 
and escaping at the opening externally. The indica- 
tions for making a point of exit in the dependent por- 
tion of this pus-6ac were urgent, and on August 8, the 
operation was performed by extending the incision pre- 
viously made, downward and forward through the skin, 
subcutaneous fascia, external and internal oblique muscles, 
to a sinus or pus channel The exposed muscle contained 
a considerable number of minute spiculae of bouc. Upon 



JAMES A. <-.\i;i'll-:i.i> 77ft 

carrying a long, curved director through the opening 
between the fractured rib downward to the point of 
incision, there was a deeper channel which had not been 
exposed by the operation thus far, and the incision was 
carried through the transversalis muscle and transver- 
sals fascia, opening into the deeper track, and exposing 
the end of the director. A catheter was then passed into 
the portion of the track below the incision, a distance of 
three and one-half inches, and in a direction near the 
anterior superior spinous process of the ilium. The Presi- 
dent was etherized during this operation. 

"A comparatively uniform condition of temperature, 
pulse and respiration continued until August 14, when 
nausea, vomiting and general prostration occurred, with 
an increase of pulse to 108, temperature 100.8° Fahrenheit, 
and respiration 19 — the pulse continuing to increase, 
although the temperature remained nearly normal up to 
August 17, when food was again retained by the stomach. 
AVhen the previous attack of vomiting took place, August 
14, the stomach was placed at physiological rest, and 
resort was had to rectal alimentation until August 17, 
when the function of the stomach was gradually re-estab 
lished, and the enemata discontinued. 

"On August 18 a slight tumefaction of the right paro- 
tid gland was noticeable, unaccompanied by pain or tender- 
ness on pressure, until the suppurative period was estab- 
lished, when mental disturbance, vomiting, restlessness, and 
jactitation supervened : nor was there any increase of tem- 
perature, local or systemic, to indicate the probability of 
its metastatic origin. The parotitis presented many of 
the characteristics of an ordinary carbuncle, and was un- 
accompanied by any other abscesses in the adjoining tis- 



780 TIIE BIOQRAPRt OF 

sue. Dnring the progress of the parotitis \ ■■< ial paralysis 
occurred, and continued, with slight improvement, tmtil 
the time of his death. When the climax of suppuration 
was reached, a free fliseharge of laudable pus followed, with 

a rapid abatement of thembre urgent symptoms, and after 
the separation of the slough (which was limited in extent) 
reparation was rapid and complete throughout the entire 
suppurating surface, as well as in the several incisions 
which had been previously made to liberate the pus. 
These lesions had entirely healed at the time of death, ex- 
cept an opening behind and below the right ear, referred 
to in the autopsy. 

It was a marked feature during this whole period of 
parotid suppuration, that there was no associate systemic 
disturbance. The question of malarial complication was 
discussed at this time, but it must be remembered that 
quinine had been given in tonic doses much of the time ; 
and occasionally, when periodicity was noticeable, sedative 
doses were administered for a period of 24 hours at a 
time. 

"On August 19 a small slough was discharged from 
the lower pus-track, when the flexible catheter was readily 

ed downward a distance of 12 inches toward the right 
iliac fossa. This channel was kept free from accumula- 
tions by passing into it carbolic or permanganate water 
from the hand fountain heretofore described, at the same 
time carefully withdrawing the catheter, so as to avoid un- 
due distention oi the track. 

" During the latter part of August a number of pua 
tules of suppurating acne appeared in the axillae, and la- 
ter, four or five on the surface of the body. They were 
superficial, numbering five or six in each axilla, and about 



JAMES A. OARFIBLD. 781 

the size of large peas ; they were opened as soon as sup 
puratiou took place, healed without recurrence, and are 
believed to have been due to the septic condition of the 
system. The small carbuncle mentioned in the report of 
the autopsy was doubtless referable to the same cause. The 
above were the only suppurating surfaces, excepting the 
incisions made into the wound, and four small superficial 
bod-sores formed on the sacrum, which were observed dur- 
ing the President's illness. 

" The subject of the removal of the President to a 
more salubrious locality had been discussed for several 
day6, and was urgently presented at the consultation on 
August 25. The majority of the council, with myself) 
considered that his removal at this time would be attended 
with very great hazard. The hope, however, was expressed 
that the President might be sustained until suppuratiou 
was established in the parotid, and the constitutional dLs- 
turbances incident thereto had subsided, when it would 
be possible to remove him. Stimulants were given in 
doses of vj drams, with ij ounces of beef-tea, occasionally 
introducing j dram of beef peptones, alternated with the 
yolk of an egg. These measures undoubtedly contributed 
largely to his sustentation during this period of continued 
gastric disturbance. 

"Our efforts were rewarded on August 26 by a free 
discharge of pus from the external auditory canal ; also in 
the mouth. It was believed that the pus which discha 
in the mouth dissected its way along the course of St< 
duct. There being rigidity of the masseter muscle, the 
jaw was fixed so as to preclude the possibility of op 
the month sufficiently for a satisfactory examination. A 
tenacious mucus was secreted from that side in large quan 



782 THE DIOORAPnT OF 

titles, and occasioned great annoyance. The patient dur- 
ing this period was occasionally wandering in his mind, 
especially after rousing from sleep. When his attention 
was fixed by an attendant his mental condition seemed to 
be comparatively perfect. 

" An interesting fact connected with the inflammation 
of the mucous membrane of the mouth was that it extend- 
ed by continuity to the pharynx, larynx, trachea, and bron- 
chi. The physical signs developed the fact that acute 
bronchial catarrh was the sequel. Hypostatic congestion 
of the lungs was observed for some weeks before, more 
extensive on the right than the left, because of decubitus. 
On the right side it extended to the sixth rib posteriorly, 
while on the left side it was comparatively slight, An 
improved condition was maintained, with a free-suppurat- 
ing condition of the parotid, and marked reduction of the 
tumefaction of the gland. 

" Finally it was decided by the majority of the sur- 
geons that the President should be removed to the sea- 
shore. The details as to the precautions taken to secure 
a safe transit were minute in every particular, and every 
provision was made to meet any emergency that might 
arise in the course of the journey — even preparations for 
his removal from the train to suitable places on the road 
had been previously selected, in case evidences of exhaus- 
tion should become manifest. 

"His transfer from the Executive Mansion to the 
cars was made with the least possible disturbance, without 
accident, and with perfect satisfaction and comfort to the 
patient. During the journey, his pulse and temperature 
were taken from time to time, and frequent examinations 
made to determine the effect of the motion at diffi rent 



JAMES A. GAIiFfF/n 

rates of speed. The minimum of nnplea aril motion 
seemed to be secured at a rate of about sixty mill 
hour. During the fast hour of his journey lie showed 
symptoms of fatigue, which would have prevented a 
longer journey had such been required to reach hw dea< 
tination. His pulse increased, the countenance became 
slightly anxious, and the temperature measurably exalted 
at the period to which I allude. 

"He was transferred from the cars to the Elberon 
Cottage without accident, the pulse at lit p. m. reaching 
124, temperature 101.6°. The morning of September? 
his .pulse had fallen to 106, temperature 98.4°, respiration 
18. The President expressed great satisfaction that he 
had arrived at the sea-shore, and, notwithstanding the 
heat of the two succeeding days, it made hut little impres- 
sion upon the distinguished patient, the pulse, temper- 
ature and respiration continuing the same until September 
15, when his pulse slightly increased in the evening, 
so that it occasionally reached 120 during the night. 

"After his arrival at Elberon, there was an extension 
of the bronchial catarrh into the ramifications of the 
bronchi of the right lung, and limited broncho-pneumonia 
followed. 

" I should mention here a fact well known, that the 
President was so much pleased with his improvement 
that he expressed a wish that the number of his p] 
sional attendants should be reduced. Accordingly Dra, 
Barnes, "Woodward and Reyburn retired from tin- 
lea ving Elberon the morning of September 8. 

"September 17, at 11 a. m., a severe rigor occurred of 
hklf an hours duration, followed by a sharp rifie in tem- 
perature. At 12 m. the pulse was 120, temperature 



784 T1IE BIOGRAPHY OP 

Fahrenhoit, and respiration 2-i. The mental disturbances 
wero more noticeablo during the febrile rise, but the 
stomach was able to retain the nourishment and stimulants, 
which wero given at regular intervals in the form of 
milk-punch. This chill was accompanied by severe pain 
over the anterior mediastinum, and the President said to 
me that it was similar to what he understood a.s angina 
pectoris. It is evident that this pain, which occurred on 
several occasions at intervals of six to twelve hours prior 
to his death, was occasioned by first a rupture of the 
aneurismal sac, and the progressive dissection, at irregular 
intervals, of the blood into the surrounding tissue, until 
finally it burst into tho peritoneum. 

" A febrile rise was very marked by 12 noon of the 
17th, attended with great anxiety of countenance, the 
temperature falling to 98° Fahrenheit, the lowest point of 
normal range, tho pulse being, however, steadily at 102, 
and rather feeble. While there was, in my judgment, au 
absence of typical metastatic abscesses to produce this 
symptom, there was a profound expression of gravity in 
his condition that was not commensurate with tho sys- 
temic disturbance, and which prevented my absence, 
even for a few moments at a time. I remarked to Dr. 
Agnew : ' I am in constant fear of some danger impend- 
ing. We may have a terrible outburst, possibly in the 
shape of a cardiac thrombus.' I said to members of the 
family : ' There is a gravity in this case that portends 
Berious trouble.' 

" At G p. m. <»f the L8th there was another chill, accom- 
panied with pain as before. The febrile rise continued 
until midnight, the pulse varying from 112 to 130. 

" At 8 \. m. September 19, the pulse was 106, and 



JAMES t. GARFIELD, 

feeble; temperature L08.8 , and all the conditions an 

favorable. In half an hour afterward there wu 
another chill, followed by febrile rise and sweating and 
also with pain as before. During the periods of chill and 
fever he was more or less unconsciou- Be passed all 
day in comparative comfort, and at 8.30 in the evening 
his pulse was 108, respiration 20, and temperature 
dently a little lower than normal. 

"At 10.10 p.m. I was summoned hastily to the I 
side, and found the President in an unconscious and i 
condition, pulseless at the wrist, with extrome pallor, the 
eyes opened and turned upward, and respiration 8 per 
minute, and gasping. Placing my finger upon the carotid, 
I could not recognize pulsation ; applying my ear 
the heart, I detected an indistinct flutter, which continued 
until 10.35, when ho expired. The brave and heroic 
sufferer, the Nation's patient, for whom all had lat> 
so cheerfully and unceasingly, had passed away. 

"Soon after the President expired, it became no 
sary to make arrangements for an autopsy, so . 
present to the profession, in a definite manner, the track 
of the ball and the parts involved ; also to ascertain the 
immediate cause of death. I deemed it proper to invite 
Surgeon-General Barnes and Surgeon J. J. Woodward, 
United States Army, and Dr. Robert Reyburn, of W 
irigton, D. C, who were formerly associated in the 
to take part in the autopsy, and also invited, at the 
instance of Dr. Woodward, Dr. Lamb, of the Army 
Medical Museum, for the same purpose. The forme! 
tlemen arrived at Elberon, X. J., about 3.45 p.m., when 
the post-mortem examination was commenced. Dr. 



T86 THE BIOUliAPUY OF 

A. II. Smith, of New Jersey and New York, and tem- 
porarily at Elberon, was also invited. 

"The most important points revealed by the autopsy, 
and which are to be considered by the profession, are : 

"First. Would the condition of the President, immedi- 
ately after his injury, have justified a more thorough ex- 
ploration of the wound, or would such a procedure have 
been safe at any time before primary reaction was estab- 
lished ? 

" Second. Was his transfer to the Executive Mansion 
timely and properly made ? 

" Third. Were the best and most judicious means insti- 
tuted to secure prompt reaction ( 

" Fourth . After reaction was comparatively complete on 
the 3d of July, and when there had occurred spontaneous 
evacuations of normal urine and alvinc evacuations, and 
an absence of any evidence of internal hemorrhage or 
peritonitis, would further exploration have been necessary, 
especially when it is considered that the probable reopen- 
ing of the lacerated vessels would induce hemorrhage? 

" Fifth. Were the surgeons then in attendance justified 
in deferring any further exploration until the arrival of 
the distinguished counsel on the morning of July 4 { 

u Sixth. At the consultation, July 4, and after it was 
proved to be impossible to follow the track of the ball any 
considerable distance beyond the fractured rib, would an 
operation have been justifiable, necessitating an incision 
Through the soft parts and a removal of a portion of the rib, 
»oaa to develop the track i 

" Seventh. In the light of modern military surgery, 
vhich teaches the readiness with which leaden balls be- 
come encysted, would au operation at any time for re- 



JAMES A. QAHFIBLD. 

moval of the missile have been justified unless there was 
some evidence of the missile being a source of irritation ? 

" Eighth. Considering carefully the condition of the 
President during the entire period of his illness, and the 
facts revealed by the autopsy, would not any operation for 
the purposes before mentioned have placed the President's 
life in great jeopardy, and, at best, have hastened the 
time of his death without affording any signal relief ? 

" Ninth. Was the treatment of the case as presented 
proper, and did it or not prolong his life to the utmost 
limit ? 

" Tenth. Was the mistaken diagnosis a natural result of 
the conditions present, and to have developed a correct 
diagnosis would not operative procedures have ensued ? 

" Eleventh. If we had known the exact course and lo- 
cality of the ball, and the organs injured in its passage, 
should the treatment have been modified in any particu- 
lar. 

" The artistic drawings which accompany this history 
will, I trust, facilitate its study, and their accuracy i- 
attested not only by myself, but by Prof. Faneuil I). 
Weisse, M. D., and Dr. George F. Shrady, of New York, 
both of whom visited Washington, on my invitation, to 
study the case, and make thorough and persona! examina- 
tion of the specimens preserved, with a view of verifying 
the facts in its history. 

" These drawings were made by Mr. Max Oohn, ot 
New York, who came to Washington, P. C, for that 
purpose, at my request. 

"They very satisfactorily illustrate the pom1 
impact and course of the ball, and the pathological eondi 



788 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

tion.-. which followed, and upon which the diagnosis and 
treatment were based. 

u I desire to say, in a brief review of the leading facts 
ad to the general conduct of the case, that it has been ap- 
parent to the medical reader that my prognosis was favor- 
able, and notwithstanding the mutations I augured a 
successful termination. It is but justice to myself to 
state that my prognosis was based on a lesion of minor 
importance. Had our diagnosis been correct, modern 
surgery should have conducted the case to a successful 
termination. I believe the medical profession, whom I 
address, will bear me o*ut that the prognosis was correct if 
the diagnosis had been also correct. I was not always 
able, during the progress of the case, to account for many of 
the in.. re profound symptoms, and yet could not succeed in 
learning of any more extensive or complicated lesions than 
wore first suspected. I desire to make the inquiry 
whether more extensive explorations could have been 
safely made, or whether the condition presented — a 
knowledge of the relative position of the patient to the 
assassin, the character of the missile, and the condition 
of the lesion and symptoms which follow — would have 
directed the investigation toward the actual track and 
lodgment of the ball, the track of the ball presenting a 
course of entrance downward and forward to the point of 
impingement upon the eleventh rib, and being then de- 
i to the left at almost a right angle, passing behind 
the kidney, perforating the intervertebral cartilage and 
first lumbar vertebrae anterior and to the left of the 
kidney, and finding it.- lodgment below the left extremity 
of the pancreas, wounding in its track the splenic artery, 
i would ask ifauv known instrument or means of explora- 



JA.MES A. GARFIELD. 






tion has ever been presented to the profession capable- of 
tracing before the death of said patient the course of this 
bullet? A Uo whether the conditions could have 
improved or mitigated, or his life preserved longer by any 
other line of treatment ; whether, in view of the facts, 
modern conservative surgery could offer Anything more 
for the comfort or recovery of the illustrious patient. 

" It is proper to state, in conclusion, that the most ap- 
proved antiseptic dressings were used during the entire 
progress of the case." 

- VII. 

A Curious Record. 

The following is a copy of the daily record of the 
pulse, temperature and respiration of President Garfield, 
from July 2 to September 19, 1S81. 



DATE. 


PULSE. 


temperature, 


i;i>rn:.\: 
























A. 51. 


M. 


P. M. 


A. M. 


M. 


P. H. 


A. M. 


M. 


P. M. 

20 


July 


S 




120 












July 


4 


'l08 


"did 


126 


99\4 


i66" 


loi 9 


19 




Stf 


July 


5 


111 


110 


106 


1i «) 5 


101 


UN) 9 


24 


24 


54 


July 


6 


98 


100 


104 


98 'J 


99 7 


100.6 






a 


July 




94 


100 


106 


99.1 


100.8 


100.2 


28 




23 


July 


8 


'.Mi 


108 


108 


99 2 


101 1 


101.3 




24 




July 


9 


100 


101 


108 


99.4 


101 ■-■ 


101.9 


24 


a 




July 


10 


106 


102 


108 


100 


100.5 


Ml 9 




22 


£4 


July 


U 


98 


106 


108 


99.2 




102 s 


22 


24 




July 


12 


06 


100 


101 


99.6 


100.8 


102 i 


22 


21 




July 


13 


90 


94 


100 




100.6 




20 




•.'I 


July 


11 


90 


94 


98 






101 








July 


15 


90 


94 




98 5 


98 "i 


100 : 




ID 




J u 1 V 


16 


90 


01 




'.is 5 


'.K 1 


100 -' 


18 


IE 




July 


17 


90 


94 


■ 


98 1 








Is 




July 


is 


88 


98 


102 






ipo 




18 


'.'1 


July 


lit 


90 


92 


96 








18 




19 


July 
July 


i-'O 


86 


its 


98 


98.4 


98 i 


99 d 


18 




19 


21 


88 


98 


96 




96 l 






10 




July 


gg 


88 


82 


98 


98 l 




100 2 




1- 




July 


23 


93 


1S5 


118 


97 l 


104 


H'l T 


19 






July 

July 


24 


08 


118 


104 








18 






25 


96 


104 


110 


98 1 








20 




July 


26 


102 


ii«; 


104 


98.4 




i"i r 




19 




July 


27 


94 


90 


95 


98 4 


98 i 






18 





790 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 





PULSE. 


TEMPERATURE. 


RESPIRATION. 


DATE. 






















A. M. 


M. 


r. m. 


A. M. 


K. 


r. m. 


A. M. 


M. 


r. m. 


July 28 


92 


94 


104 


98.4 


98.5 


100.5 


18 


18 


20 


July 29 


92 


98 


98 


93.4 


98.4 


100 


18 


19 


.20 


July 30 


92 


98 


104 


93.5 


93.5 


1(H) 


18 


20 


20 


July 31 


94 


100 


104 


98.4 


98.5 


90 


18 


19 


20 


Aug. 1 


94 


100 


104 


98.4 


98.4 




18 


19 


20 


Aug. 2 


94 


99 


104 


98 t 


98.4 


100 


18 


19 


20 


A UK- 3 


% 


100 


102 


98.4 


98.4 


9.1.4 


18 


19 


19 


Aug. 4 


90 


96 


102 


98.4 


98.4 


H XI 2 


18 


18 


19 


Aug. 5 


88 


98 


102 


98.4 


98.4 


100.4 


18 


18 


19 


Aug. 6 


92 


100 


102 


93.4 


98.5 


101.8 


18 


19 


19 


Ang. 7 


96 


104 


104 


98.7 


100 


101 2 


1 18 


20 


20 


Aug. 8 


94 


104 


108 


98.4 


100.2 


101.9 


i W 


20 


19 


An?. 9 


93 


104 


100 


99.fi 


99.7 


101.9 


19 


19 


19 


Aug. 10 


104 


1)0 


108 


98.5 


98.6 


101 


19 


19 


19 


Aug. 11 


100 


102 


IDS 


08.0 


98.6 


101.2 


19 


19 


19 


AOg. 13 


100 


too 


108 


98 B 


99.3 


101.2 


19 


19 


19 


Aug. 13 


104 


102 


104 


100.8 


99 2 


100.7 


19 


18 


19 


lug. 11 


100 


96 


108 


99.8 


99.3 


100.8 


18 


13 


19 


Aug. 15 


ins 


118 


130 


100.2 


99 


99.6 


20 


19 


22 


Aug. 16 


110 


114 


120 


98.6 


98 a 


98.9 


18 


is 


19 


Aug. 17 


110 


112 


112 


98.3 


98.7 


98 8 


18 


18 


18 


Aug 18 


104 


108 


108 


98 8 


98.4 


100 


17 


18 


18 


Aug. 19 


100 


106 


100 


98. 4 


98.8 


100 


17 


17 


18 


Aug. 20 


98 


107 


110 


98 4 


98 l 


100.4 


is 


18 


ig 


Aug. 21 


106 


108 


108 


93.8 


99.4 


99.2 


18 


18 


is 


Aug. 22 


104 


104 


110 


9S.4 


98.4 


100.1 


18 


18 


19 


Aug. 28 


100 


104 


104 


98.4 


9S.9 


99 2 


18 


IS 


19 


Aug. 24 


100 


104 


108 


98.5 


99.2 


100.7 


17 


17 


19 


Aug. 26 


106 


112 


112 


98.5 


99.2 


99.8 


18 


19 


19 


Aug. 26 


108 


118 


116 


99 1 


10U 


99 9 


17 


18 


is 


Aug. 27 


120 


120 


111 


98 1 


99.6 


98.9 


22 


22 


22 


Aug. 28 


100 


104 


110 


93.4 


99.5 


99.7 


17 


18 


20 


Aug. 29 


100 


106 


110 


98 6 


98.6 


100.5 


17 


18 


18 


Aug. 30 


102 


110 


109 


98.5 


98.9 


99,5 


18 


is 


16 


Aug. 31 


100 


95 


109 


98.4 


98.4 


9-1.6 


18 


17 


18 


Sept l 


100 


108 


108 


98.4 


98.6 


99.4 


17 


18 


18 


Sepl 2 


100 


IDS 


104 


98 I 


98.7 


99 2 


17 


is 


18 


Sept. 8 


104 


104 


102 


98.6 


98.4 


99.6 


18 


is 


18 


Sept. 4 


108 


106 


110 


98 l 


98.4 


99 


18 


18 


IS 


Sept. 5 


102 


114 


108 


99.5 


99.5 


99.8 


18 


is 


19 


Sept. 6 


118 


110 


124 






101.0 






IS 


Sept. 7 


106 


114 


108 


9M 


9M 


101 


is 


is 


18 


S< pt. 8 


104 


94 


100 


98.7 


98 I 


99.1 


is 


17 


is 


Sept. 8 


li»il 


100 


100 


98.5 


98 1 


98 s 


17 


17 


18 


Sept. 10 


100 


100 


100 


99 1 


98 5 




is 


18 


18 


Sepl ii 


104 


110 


110 


98.8 


100 


(06 


19 


20 


20 


Sept. 12 


100 


106 


100 


:ts , 1 


99 8 


98 8 


is 


20 


18 


Sept. 18 


100 


100 


100 


99.4 


98 s 


98 i 


20 


20 


20 


Sept. l i 


100 


104 


118 


98 i 




99 2 


19 


20 


21 


Sept. 16 


too 


\i\> 


104 


98 l 


98 9 


99 e 


20 


21 


21 


Sepl 16 


104 


116 


104 


:« 




98 8 


21 


21 


22 


Sept. 17 


108 


WO 


102 


09.8 


102 


98 


21 


24 


18 


Sepl 18 


M-,' 


110 


102 


98 


100 


98.4 


IS 


20 


20 


bept. 19 


106 


104 


102 


08.8 


9s a 


98.4 


22 


20 


18 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 7U1 

VIII. 

Some of Garfield 1 s Notable Words. 

The following utterances of General Garfield have 
been selected from his Public Speeches and Private Let- 
ters. 

Nearer to God. 

There are times in the history of men and nations, 
when they stand so near the veil that separates mortals and 
immortals, time from eternity, and men from their God, 
that they can almost hear their breathings and feel the. 
pulsations of the heart of the infinite. Through such a 
time has this nation passed. When two hundred and 
fifty thousand brave spirits passed from the field of honor 
through that thin veil to the presence of God, and when, 
at last, its parting folds admitted the martyred President 
to the company of the dead heroes of the Republic, the 
nation stood so near the veil that the whispers of God 
were heard by the children of men. 

Oration on Abraham Lincoln. 

Calm Deceptive. 

Quiet is no certain pledge of permanence and sa; 
Trees may flourish and flowers may bloom upon the quiet 
mountain side, while silently the trickling rain-dro] 
filling the deep cavern behind its rocky barriers, which, 
by and by, in a single moment, shall hurl to wild ruin it> 
treacherous peace. 

Oration at Ravenna, O.. /i//i/4, 1880. 



792 '1HK BtOQHAPHf OP 

The two great Oceans. 

The Atlantic is still the great historic sea. Even in its 
sunken wrecks might be read the record of modern na- 
tions. Who shall say that the Pacific will not jet become 
the groat historic sea of the future — the vast amphitheatre 
around which shall sit in majesty and power the two 
Americas, Asia, Africa, and the chief colonies of Europe. 
God forbid that the waters of our national life should ever 
settle to the dead level of a waveless calm. It would be the 
stagnation of death, the ocean grave of individual liberty. 

Discernment of Character. 

I have sometimes thought that we cannot know any 
man thoroughly well while he is in perfect health. As 
the ebb-tide discloses the real lines of the shore and the 
bed of the sea, so feebleness, sickness, and pain bring out 
the real character of a man. For years he pushed away 
the hand that was reaching for his heart-strings, and 
bravely worked on until the last hour. I do not doubt 
that his will and cheerful courage prolonged his life many 
years. 

Oration on Congressman Starkweather. 

Education. 

A finished education is supposed to consist mainly of 
literary culture. The story of the forges of the Cyclops, 
where the thunderl olts of Jove were fashioned, is sup- 
posed to adorn elegant scholarship more gracefully than 
those sturdy truths which are preaching to this generation 
in the wonders of the mine, in the fire of the furnace, in 
the clang of the iron-mills, and the other innumerable in- 
dustries which, more than all other human agencies, have 



./ [JfffS .1. QARFIfll i> 

made our civilization what it is, and arc destined to 
achieve wonders yet undreamed of. 

Address at Strom, June 14, 1889. 

Our Safeguard. 

Finally, our great hope for the future, our great safe- 
guard against danger, is to be found in the general and 
thorough education of our people, and in the virtne 
which accompanies such education. And all these ele- 
ments depend, in a large measure, upon the intellectual 
and moral culture of the young men who go out from 
our higher institutions of learning. From the stand-point 
of this general culture we may trustfully encounter the 
perils that assail us. Secure against dangers from abroad, 
united at home by the stronger ties of common interest 
and patriotic pride, holding and unifying our vast terri- 
tory by the most potent forces of civilization, relying 
upon the intelligent strength and responsibility of ouch 
citizen, and, most of all, upon the power of truth, with- 
out undue arrogance, we may hope that in the centuries 
to come our Kepublic will continue to live and hold its 
high place among the nations as 

" The heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time." 

Address at Hudson CoUegt- 

An Interesting Object. 

If the superior beings of the universe would look 
down upon the world to find the most interesting object, 
it would be the unfinished, unformed character of young 
men, or of young women. 

J mum Cvlltp, July, 1880. 



794 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

The Wrath of the World. 

For twenty-two years, with the exception of the last 
few days, I have been in the public service. To-night I 
am a private citizen. To-morrow I shall be called to 
assume new responsibilities, and on the day after the 
broadside of the world's wrath will strike. It will strike 
hard. 1 know it, and you will know it. 

Class Dinner, Washington, March 3, 1881. 

The Co?iditio7i of Poverty. 

Poverty is uncomfortable, as I can testify ; but nine 
times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a 
young man is to be tossed overboard, and compelled to 
sink or swim for himself. In all my acquaintance I never 
knew a man to be drowned who was worth the saving. 

Private Letter. 

Possibilities of a young Man. 

I have not so far left the coast of youth to travel 
inland but that I can very well remember the state of 
young manhood, from an experience in it of some years, 
and there is nothing to nie in this world so inspiring as 
the possibilities that lie locked up in the head and breast 
of a young man. The hopes that lie before him, the 
great inspirations above him, all these things, with the 
untried pathway of life opening up : .ts difficulties and 
dangers, inspire him to courage, and force, and work. 

Private Letter irritten at Mentor. 

Efforts Wrongly Directed. 

One-halt of the time which is now almost wholly 
wasted, in district schools, on English grammar, at- 



JAMES A. UAHFIEI.H 7»r, 

tempted at too early an age, would be sufficient to teach 
our children to love the Republic, and to become its 
loyal and life-long supporters. 

It is to me a perpetual wonder that any child's love of 
knowledge survives the outrages of the school-house. 

That man will be a benefactor of his race who shall 
teach us how to manage rightly the first years of a child's 
education. 

Hope for the Nation. 

I look forward with joy and hope to the day when 
our brave people, one in heart, one in their aspirations 
for freedom and peace, shall see that the darkness through 
which we have traveled was but a part of that stern but 
beneficent discipline by which the great Disposer of events 
has been leading us on to a higher and nobler national 
life. 

Symbol of the Business of the Country. 

The business of the country is like the level ot the 
ocean, from which all measurements are made of heights 
and depths. Though tides and currents may for a time 
disturb, and tempests vex and toss its surface, still, through 
calm and storm, the irrand level rules all its waves and lavs 
its measuring lines on every shore. So the business of 
the country, which, in the aggregated demands of the 
people for exchange of values, marks the ebb and flow, 
the rise and fall of the currents of trade, and forms the 
base line from which to measure all our financial legis- 
lation, is the only safe rule by which the volume of our 
currency can be determined. 

House of Representative*, January 7, 1870. 
SO 



706 THE BIOGUM'HY OF 

Public Opinion and Finance. 

That man makes a vital mistake who judges truth in 
relation to financial affairs from the changing phases of 
public opinion. He might as well stand on the shore of 
the Bay of Fundy, and from the ebb and flow of a single 
tide attempt to determine the general level of the sea, as 
to stand upon this floor, and from the current of public 
opinion on any one debate, judge of the general level of 
the public mind. It is only when long spaces along the 
shore of the sea are taken into account that the grand 
level is found from which the heights and depths are 
measured. And it is only when long spaces of time are 
considered that we find at last that level of public opinion 
which we call the general judgment of mankind. 

An Artificial Giant. 

A government is an artificial giant, and the power that 
moves it is money — money raised by taxation and distrib- 
uted to the various parts of tho body politic, according to 
the discretion of the legislative power. 

A Note of Warning. 

During the many calm years of the century our pilots have 
grown careless of the course. The master of a vessel sail- 
ing down Lake Ontario has the whole breadth of that beau- 
tiful inland sea for his pathway. But when his ship ar- 
rives at the chute of the Lachiue there is but one pathway 
of safety. With a steady hand, a clear eye, and a bravo 
heart he points his prow to tho well-fixed landmarks on 
the shore, and, with death on either hand, makes tho 
plunge and shoots ther rapids in safety. "We too are ap- 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 797 

proaching the narrows, and we hear the roar of the angry 
waters below and the muttering of the sullen thunder 
overhead. Unterrified by breakers or tempest, let us Bteer 
our course by the Constitution of our fathers, and we shall 
neither sink in the rapids nor compel our children to shoot 
Niagara and perish in the whirlpool. 

Congress. 

Congress must always be the exponent of the political 
character and culture of the people, and if the next cen- 
tennial does not find us a great nation with a great and 
worthy Congress, it will be because those who represent 
the enterprise, the culture, and the morality of the nation do 
not aid in controlling the political forces, which are em- 
ployed to select the men who shall occupy the great places 

of trust and power. 

"4 Century in Congress*" Atlantic -Monthly, Aug., 1876. 

Behind Public Life. 
Behind this public life lies a world of history, of quiet, 
beautiful, home-life, within which the religious opinioxs 
and sentiments are manifested— a world of affection, the 
features of whic'i are rarely brought out in this forum. 
Oration on the death of Congressman Starkweather. 

J?nj?artial Suffrage. 

Laugh as we may, put it aside as a jest if we will, 

keep it out of Congress or political campaigns, still, the 

woman question is rising in our horizon larger than the 

size of a man's hand ; and some solution, ere long, that 

question must find. 

Address before Washington Butiflot* GoUqp. 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Concerning Fin Subjects. 

Men's first opinions are almost always wrong in re- 
gard to thern, as they are in regard to astronomy, and lie 
who reads tike truths that lie d - in imminent dan- 

ger of being tabooed for a madman. 

Private Letter, Dec. 15, 1867. 

An uncertain currency that goes up and down, hits the 
laborer, and hits him hard. It helps him last and hurts 
him first. 

Divine Right. 

We have happily escaped the dogma of the divine 
right of king?. Let us not fall into the eqnaliy pernicious 
error that multitude is divine because it is a multitude, 

Structure of Soc 
There is no horizontal stratification of societv in this 
country like the rocks in the earth, that hold one class 
down below forevermore, and let another come to the sur- 
face to stay there forever. Our stratification is like the 
ocean, where every individual drop is free to move, and 
whero from the sternest depths of the mighty deep any 
drop may come up to glitter on the highest wave that 
rolls. 

A notable Danger in Politics. 
The most alarming feature of our situation is the fact 
that so many citizens of high character and solid judgmeirt 
pay but little attention to the sources of political power, to 
the selection of those who shall make their laws. The clergy, 
the faculties of colleges, and many of the lea ling business 
men of the community, never attend the township caucus. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 790 

the city primaries, or the county conventions ; but they 
allow the less intelligent and the more selfish and corrupt 
members of the community to make the slates and " run 
the machine " of politics. They wait until the machine 
has done its work, and then, in surprise and horror at the 
ignorance and corruption in public office, sigh for the re- 
turn of that mythical period called the " better and purer 
days of the Republic." 

"A Oentury in Congress" Atlantic Monthly, July, 1877. 

Absolute Power. 

It was the purpose of our fathers to lodge absolute 
power nowhere ; to leave each department independent 
within its own sphere ; yet, in every case, responsible for 
the exercise of its discretion. 

Atlantic Monthly. 

A Great Virtue. 
If I were to state to-day the single quality that appears 
to me most admirable among the fathers of the Revolu- 
tion, I should say it was this : that amidst all the passion^ 
of war, waged against a perfidious enemy from beyond 
the sea, aided by a savage enemy on our own shores, our 
fathers exhibited so wonderful a restraint, so great a care 
to observe the forms of law, to protect the rights of the 
minority, to preserve all those great rights that had come 
down to them from the common law, so that when they 
had achieved their independence they were still a law-abid- 
ing people. 

Speech accepting the Statues of Winthrop and Adams. 

Volu n tary En terpr ise. 
There is another force even greater than that of the 



800 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

State and the local governments. It is the force of 
private voluntary enterprise, that force which has built up 
the multitude of private schools, academies, and colleges 
throughout the United States, not always wisely, but 
always with enthusiasm and wonderful energy. 

House of Representatives) Feb. 6, 1872. 

A Popular Right. 

It is the right of the American people to know the 
necessities of the Republic when they are called upon to 
make sacrifices for it. 

Commerce and Industry. 

Commerce links all mankind in one common brother- 
hood of mutual dependence and interests, and thus creates 
that unity of our race which makes the resources of all 
the property of each and every member. 

Wherever a ship plows the sea, or a plow furrows the 
field ; wherever a mine yields its treasure ; wherever a 
ship or a railroad train carries freight to market ; wher- 
ever the smoke of the furnace rises, or the clang of the 
loom resounds ; even in the lonely garret where the 
seamstress plies her busy needle, — there is industry. 

House of Representatives, April 1, 1870. 

Raih'oads. 

Imagine if you can what would happen if to-morrow 
morning the railway locomotive and its corollary, the tele- 
graph, were blotted from the earth. To what humble 
proportions mankind would be compelled to scale down 
the great enterprises they are now pushing forward with 

such ease. 

Ibid. 



JAKES A. QABFIBLD, 

Reign of Law. 

The assertion of the reign of law has been stubbornly 
resisted at every step. The divinities of heathen super- 
stition etill linger in one form or another in the faith of 
the ignorant; and even many intelligent men shrink from 
the contemplation of one supreme will acting regularly, 
not fatuitously, through laws beautiful and simple, rather 
than through a fitful and capricious Providence. 

Truth, 

Truth is so related and corelated that no department 
of her realm is wholly isolated. 

Truth is the food of the human spirit, which could 
not grow in its majestic proportions without clearer and 
more truthful views of God and his universe. 

The Value of Yietory. 

Victory is worth nothing except for the fruits that 
are under it, in it, and above it. 

New York, August 6th , 1880. 

Power*, 

Power exhibits itself under two distinct forms — 
strength and force,— each possessing peculiar qualities 
and each perfect in its own sphere. Strength is typified 
by the oak, the rock, the mountain. Force embodies 
itself in the cataract, the tempest and the thunder-bolt. 

What Most Men Desire. 
I take it for granted that every thoughtful, intelligent 
man would bo glad, if he could, to be on the right side, 



BOS THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

believing that in the long run the right 6ide will bo the 

strong side. 

Cleveland, October 11, 1879. 

A Laudable Endeavor. 

I am trying to do two things : dare to be a radical, 
and not bo a fool, which, if I may judge by the exhibi- 
tions around me, is a matter of no small difficulty. 

Private Letter, Jan. 1, 1867. 

A Dread. 

I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and 
growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut, 
and feeling myself becoming :i fossil. 

Private Utter, July 11, 1868. 

A Noble Sentiment. 

I would rather be defeated than make capital out of 
my religion. 

Remark at Chatauqua, Aupuat 8, 1880. 

Chow Old Graeefidly. 

You and I are now nearl}' in middle age, and have 
not yet become soured and shriveled with the wear and 
tear of life. Let us pray to be delivered from that con- 
dition whero life and nature have no fresh, sweet sensa- 
tions for us. 

JYivate Letter to Mr. HimdoJe, December 81, 1872. 

If wrinkles must be written upon our brows, let 

them not be written upon the heart. The spirit should 

not grow old. 

Ijctter to Cofonel llochrcll, on revisiting WiUiamt CoU* 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. BO:j 

Ujyrujhteouxu 

It is not enough for one to know that his heart and 

motives have been pure and true, if lie is not sure but 

that good men here and there, who do not kn<»\v him, 

will set him down among the lowest men of doubtful 

morality. 

Fools not All Dead, 

There are always a few who believe in the quadrature 
of the circle and the perpetual motion. The gods of 
Greece were discrowned and disowned by the civilized 
world a thousand years ago ; and yet within the las! 
generation an eminent English scholar attested his ]"\r 
for classical learning, and his devotion to the Greek 
mythology, by actually sacrificing a bull to Jupiter in the 
back-parlor of his house in London. 

( 'induct in I' V< ■>:','<■ I. 

I have always said, that my whole public life was an 
experiment to determine whether an intelligent people 
would sustain a man in acting sensibly on each proposition 
that arose, and in doing nothing for mere show or for 
demagogical effect. I do not now remember that I ever 
cast a vote of that latter sort. 

Private Letter, April 4, 1873. 

Unsettled Questions. 
It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity 
for the repose of nations. It should be said, with the ut- 
most emphasis, that this question of suffrage will never 
give repose or safety to the nation until each State within 
its own jurisdiction makes and keeps the ballot free and 
pure by the strong sanctions of the law. 

Oration at Ravenna, 0., July 4, 1860, 



904 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

Independent JoumaLmn . 

I hold it equally necessary to liberty and good govern- 
ment that the press should comment with the utmost free- 
dom upon public acts and opinions of all men who hold 
positions of public trust. Ibid. 

Perpetual Conflict. 

For the noblest man that lives there still remains a 
conflict. 

Private Judgment, 

The right of private judgment is absolute in every 
American citizen. 

The Ground of Hopefulness. 

Fellow-citizens ! Clouds and darkness are round 
about Him ! His pavilion is dark waters and thick clouds 
of the skies ! Justice and judgment are the establishment 
of His throne ! Mercy and truth shall go before His face ! 
Fellow-citizens! God reigns and the Government at Wash- 
ington still lives ! 

Speech in New York on the assassination of President Lincoln. 

An Advance. 

We no longer attribute the untimely death of infante 
to the sin of Adam, but to bad nursing and ignorance. 

Ibid. 

Predicts 

We no longer hope to predict the career and destiny 
of a human being by studying the conjunction of the 



JAMJBS A. GARFIELD. 

planets that presided at his birth. We study rather the 
laws of life within him and the elements and forces of na- 
ture and society around him. Ibid. 

Power of the Printing iVm. 

The printing press in without doubt the most powerful 
weapon with which man has ever armed himself for the 
tight against ignorance and oppression. But it was not 
free born. It was invented at a period when all the func- 
tions of government were most widely separated from the 
people, when secrecy, diplomacy, and intrigue were the 
chief elements of statesmanship. 

Address be/ore the Ohio Editorial Association, July 11,1878. 

God and Man in HUtory. 

Theologians in all ages have looked out admiringly 
upon the material universe and from its inanimate exis- 
tences demonstrated the power, wisdom, and goodness of 
God ; but we know of no one who has demonstrated the 
same attributes from the history of the human race. 

Woman's Want. 

At present, the most valuable gift which can be bestowed 
on woman is something to do, which they can do well and 
worthily, and thereby maintain themselves. 

Oration before the Washington Business College, Jan. 29, 1889. 

The Government and Education. 

The stork is a sacred bird in Holland, and is protected 
by her laws, because ii destroys those insects which would 
undermine the dikes, and let the sea again overwhelm 



THE BIOORAl'UY uF 

the rich fields of the Netherlands. Shall this government 
do nothing to fo6ter and strengthen those educational 
agencies which alone can shield the coining generation 
from ignorance and vice, and make it the impregnable 
bulwark of liberty and law ? 

House of Representatives, Jan. 8, 1866. 

JTtoughis on Robert Barns. 

To appreciate the genius and achievements of Robert 
Bums, it is fitting to compare him with others who have 
been eminent in the same field. In the highest class of 
lyric poetry their names stand eminent. Their field covers 
eighteen centuries of time, and the three names are Horace, 
Beranger, and Bums. It is an interesting and suggestive 
fact, that each of these sprang from the humble walks of 
life. Each may be described as one — 

u Who begs a brother of the eiirth. 
To give him leave to toil." 

and each proved by his life and achievements that, how- 
ever hard the lot of poverty, " a man's a man for a' 
that." 

A great writer lias said that it took the age forty years to 
catch Burns, so far was he in advance of the thoughts of his 
times. But we ought not to be surprised at the power lie 
exhibited. We arc apt to be misled when we seek to find 
the cause of greatness in the schools and universities alone. 
There is no necessary conflict between nature and art. In 
the highest and best sense art is as natural as nature. We 
do not wonder at the perfect beauty of the rose, although 
we may not understand the mysteries by which its deli- 
cate petals are fashioned and fed out of the grosser ele- 



JAMB8 A. GARFIELD 

incuts of earth. We do not wonder at the perfection of 
the rose, because God is the artist. When ] 1 
the germ of the rose-tree lie uiade possible the b 
its flower. The earth and air and sunshine couspin 
unfold and adorn it — to tint and (Town it \vi;h j>. - 
beauty. When the Divine Artist would produces poem, 
He plants a germ of it in a human soul, and out of that 
soul the poem springs and grows as from the rose-tree the 
rose. 

Burns was a child of nature. He lived close to her 
beating heart, and all the rich and deep sympathies of life 
glowed and lived in his heart. The beauties of earth, air 
and sky filled and transfigured him. 

" He did but sing because he must. 
And piped but as the linnets sing." 

With the light of his genius he glorified '"the banks 
and braes" of his native land, and, speaking for the uni- 
versal human heart, has set its sweetest thought to mu- 
sic, — 

11 Whose echoes roll from soul to soul, 
And grow forever and forever." 

Oration on the Anniversary of Burns' s Death. 

The Mount of Disc, >r< ry. 

To every man of great original power, there comes, in 
early youth, a moment of sudden discovery — ofself-n 
nition — when his own nature is revealed to himself, when 
he catches, for the first time, a strain of that immortal 
song to which his own spirit answers, and which bees 
thenceforth and forever the inspiration of hi-> life — 
"Like noble music unt<> uul>k- words." 



808 Till. hlOGHAVHY OF 

Labor and Legislation. 

When we recognize the fact that artisans and their pro- 
ducts are essential to the well-being of our country, it fol- 
lows that there is no dweller in the humblest cottage on 
our remotest frontier who has not a deep personal inter- 
est in the legislation that shall promote these great 
national industries. 

Washington's Superior Judgment, 

ITamilton was the master of a brilliant style, clear and 
bold in conception, and decisive in execution. Jefferson 
was profoundly imbued with a philosophic spirit, could 
formulate the aspirations of a brave and free people in all 
the graces of powerful rhetoric ; and other master-minds 
of thai period added their great and valuable contributions 
to the common stock ; but, whether in the camp or in the 
cabinet, the quality that rose above all the other great 
gifts of that period was the comprehensive and unerring 
judgment of Washington. It was that all-embracing 
sense, that calmness of solid judgment, that made him 
easily chief. Not only the first of his age, but foremost 
" in the foremost files of time." 

Theory of Law. 

Our theory <>f law is free consent. That is the granite 
foundation of >>my whole superstructure. Nothing in the 
Republic can be law without consent, -tin- free consent 
of the House; the free consent of tneSenate; the free 
consent of the Executive; <>r. if he refuse it, t'n«' free con- 
sent of two-thirds <»f these bodies. 

hxtro Seukn^ Mnn-h 20, 1871), 



JAMES A. GA.EFIRLD. gofl 

Modern Feudalism. 

The consolidation of our groat industrial and commer- 
cial companies, the power they wield, and the relations 
they sustain to the State and to the industry of the 
people, do not fall far short of Fourier's definition of 
commercial or industrial feudalism. The modern barons, 
more powerful than their military prototypes, own our 
greatest highways, levy tribute at will upon all our 
industries. And, as the old feudalism was finally con- 
trolled and subordinated only by the combined effort 
the kings and the people of the free cities and towns, so 
our modern feudalism can be subordinated to the public 
good only by the great body of the people, acting through 
their governments by wise and just laws. 

Speech on the Railroad Problem, June 22, 187 I. 

Power of an, An\> riran I 

In the Old World, under the despotism of Euro 
the masses of ignorant men, mere inert masses, are n. 
upon and controlled by the intelligent and cultn 
aristocracy. But in this Republic, where the government 
rests upon the will of the people, every man has an aotive 
power for good and evil, and the great question is, will he 
think rightly or wrongly ? 

House of Bepresentative» x Jurn B 4 L8 

Statesmanship. 

For all the great professions known among Ajnori 
special training-schools have been established orencour 
by law except for that of statesmanship. And yel 
profession requires for its successful pursuit a wider r 



THE BJOOhAPiir OF JAMES A. GARFIELD. 

meral and special knowledge in a more thorough and 

varied culture. 

Death of 0. P. Morton, Jan. 18, 1878. 

Statesmanship consists rather in removing causes than 
in punishing or evading results. Statistical science is in- 
dispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation, us 
in physical science, it is beginning to be understood that 
avc can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their 
laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not 
only the national will, but also those great laws of social 
life revealed by statistics. 

A Cause of Corruption. 

There is scarcely a conceivable form of corruptiou or 
public wrong that does not at la^t present itself at the 
cashier's desk and demand money. The legislature, there- 
fore, that stands at the cashier's desk and watches with its 
Argus eyes the demands for payment over the counter in- 
most certain to see all the forms of public rascality. 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. m 



IX. 

Trial of the Assassin. 

The trial of Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President 
Garfield, was begun at the National Capital, in the Su- 
preme Court of the District of Columbia, before Judge 
Cox, on Monday, November 15, 1881. Guiteau had been 
imprisoned in Washington since the day when he shot 
the President, July 2, 1881. He had been indicted of 
wilful murder by the grand jury of the District ; bad bi ( d 
arraigned before the court ; the act of shooting the Pr< s- 
ident by the prisoner had been acknowledged, and he had 
pleaded irresponsibility fur the awful crime which he had 
committed by asserting that he was inspired and directed 
iby the Deity to perform the deed, and had therefore 
ceased to have control of his will and his actions. 

The only defense that could be made for the prisoner 
in palliation for the crime was that of insanity, tempo- 
rary or permanent, and consequently his irresponsibility. 
This, then, was the only plea that was made in Gnitean's 
defense on the trial ; and the real question for the jun- 
to decide was whether, at the time the prisoner committed 
the deed, he was sane or insane. 

The incidents attending the trial of the assassin of the 
President made that trial one of the most remarkable 
found recorded in criminal history. The exalted public 
station occupied by the victim, and his grand char 
as a man, a citizen and a statesman, caused this trial to 
excite a wide-spread interest in its progress and its result, 
at home and abroad. This interest was heightened by the 
deportment of the prisoner throughout the long trial, 
which was defiant, impertinent, sometimes aim 



it or 

-'gar. He : 

■ 
- - " 

a conviction 

- - - - . - . 

: 

- ■ 
: 

an c: 

- : 
- • _ : : • • 

: 

. • 1 

: 

_ ...-: .v - 

... 

I 

- 

. - 



JA.L QABFIBLD. 

room in the court-house at eight o'clock. Guiteau was 
conveyed to the place of trial in the prison van 
by four mounted policemen, two in front and two in the 
rear, and four policemen riding on the veniclc. A large 
number of special officers had been appointed t<j pi 
the prisoner from the interference of the popular 
the public indignation against Guiteau was in - 
These formed lines through which he was to be con- 
ducted. 

Judge Cox entered the court-room about ten o'clock, 
when the crier declared the court to be opened. The 
marshal and 1:;: deputies brought the prisoner in: 
room, when he was relieved of his hand-cuffs and took a 
seat by the side of his sister, Mrs. Scoville. One of his 
first movements was to thrust his Land into one of his 
pockets and take out a roll of paper, which Mr. Scoville 
ordered him to put back. 

The prosecution was conducted by District-Attorney 
Corkhill, assisted by able counsel. He stated that the gov- 
ernment was ready to proceed with the trial, when Mr. 
Robinson, Mr. Scoville"; associate, arose and asked the 
court for a postponement of the trial until he should ob- 
tain the decision of an eminent member of the District 
bar, whem he had asked to becon.' itea with 

in the case, for with such an u: : array of cc 

opposed to him he did not feel competent to conduct the 
defense successfully, without more assistance. Th. 
plication produced a scene in court which was frequently 
imitated during the long trial. 

As soon as Mr. Robinson sat down the prisoner rose in 
an excited manner and addressed the Court. lie claimed 
the privilege of a regularly licensed lawyer (which he 
to act as his own counsel and conduct his own case. Hi 
said he wished to be heard. In vain Scoville tried to b 
him quiet : he was irrepressible, lie stated that he 
not aware that Robinson intended to ask fur a ; 
ment, and he desired to be heard ii 

The court stated th not then the proper ti 



814 THE BIOGRArilT OF 

to enter upon the defense, when the prisoner, much ex- 
cited, said : 

" So far as I am concerned I do not want further time. 
We are ready to try this case now." To a deputy mar- 
shal who tried to restrain him, the prisoner said angrily, 
u Will you be quiet ?" 

Mr. Robinson then made an affidavit to the effect that 
a postponement was necessary not only to secure the at- 
tendance of certain witnesses, but to procure associate 
counsel. " In asking for this assignment of counsel," he 
said, "it will be obvious as soon as I have given the name 
of the gentleman, that I am asking for an auxiliary which 
will be accepted by this community as a guarantee (I 
trust I may say as an additional guarantee) of the char- 
acter and integrity of this defense." 

Mr. Scoville was surprised. This, he said, was the 
first intimation from his associate that a postponement 
was desirable. He had not heard the name of the lawyer 
which Robinson proposed to associate with them, nor had 
he seen the affidavit : he therefore objected to any further 
proceedings in that direction without his consent. lie 
had been in Washington, he said, six weeks preparing for 
the defense of the prisoner ; had undertaken in good faith 
to prepare for that defense; had summoned his witnessi .-. 
and believed that with his associate counsel (Robinson), 
they might safely proceed with the trial. lie desired no 
concealments, and declared that if he was not to be in- 
formed by his associate of important action which he 
might propose to take, he preferred to withdraw from the 
case. "Unless the defense; can go on harmoniously," he 
said, "I will withdraw." (The matter was amicably set- 
tled in a day or two.) 

Guiteau now sprang to his feet, in spite of the deputy 
marshals, and exclaimed : 

"I iudorse every word of thai : and I tell Mr. Robin- 
son that if he docs not do this thing just as I want it 
• lune, ho can get out of the case. That's short." 

Robinson rose to speak, when Guiteau said : 



jami.s .1. (iAunm.u. 

"I don't want to hour any more 
Robinson : I want him to gi : oal of thi 

Again, when Robinson attempt* 
escaping from the grasp of the deputii . it : 

"I do not want Mr. Robin*nn to aot as mj I 

want to say emphatically thai Mr. Ro 
this case without my consent. 1 know m thing al 
and I do not like the way he talks. I ask hira pen i 
to retire. I expect at some time to h:r. i 
any counsel that I please. I am not a beggar nor u pan 
I will not have Robinson in the case." 

The court decided that as the prisoner and his r 
tions desired it the trial should proceed then, and that, 
after a jury should be impanelled and qnalifii 
Robinson needed more time to prepare his case he would 
allow it. The court then said, " l.<: the case coma 
to-day." 

During these proceedings the restless prisoner contin- 
ually interfered by remarks made under 
until the judge peremptorily ordered him to be qu 
he obeyed. The jury panel were sworn, when th- 
in the exercise of the right to challenge, caused the panel 
to be exhausted when five jurors had been acoe] 
qualified. 

At this point the prisoner again rose and informed 
court that he would like to make a speech t : orn- 

ing, when the court ordered him ' 'can 

then handed the manuscript of hi- whjch h< 

tended to read, to a newspaper reporter, w 
back and compelled by Mr. Scoville to return 
prisoner angrily declared that he was yet his own m 
and not under the control of bis counsel, thai he km ■•■ 
law himself, and that when he wan to.! 
ask for it. This exciting epis 
proceedings of this remarkable trial, an 
of the temper of the assassin. Hia soppn 
which mysteriously appeared in the no v. 



THE BIOQRAPitX OP 

day, revealed the basts upon which he would rest his 
defense. 

In that address the prisoner declared that it was absurd 
to charge him with the crime of killing the President, be- 
cause he •' died from malpractice," and t he doctors ought 
to be indicted for murdering him ; that the removal of the 
President was a special providence : that he was doing 
harm to the Republic, and the Lord and himself (Guiteau) 
took the responsibility of putting an end to his career ; 
that the break in the Republican party was portentous of 
another civil war, and that the Lord, wishing to prevent 
it, inspired him (Guiteau) to execute his will in preference 
to any one else because he had the brains and nerve to do 
the work; for the "Lord never employs incompetent per- 
sons in his service." 

Guiteau then touched lightly upon his own life career; 
spoke of his father's evident insanity in favoring the 
Oneida Community, whose founder he terribly scourged; 
declared that insanity was an affliction in his family; said 
ho expected aid from friends whom his "inspiration " had 
benefited financially, and others who were indebted to it 
for positions, "from the President down; " and in conclu- 
sion he appealed for justice to the court and the prosecu- 
ting officer, begging them to be slow in prosecuting the 
case "that they might not do injustice to Deity" whose 
servant he was, and of whom he had said, in respect to his 
crime, "The Deity seems well disposed to father it thus 
far," for he had shielded him twice from bullets that had 
been fired at him. He thought it not likely the Lord 
would allow him " to come to grief for obeying him." "I 
am confident," he said, "he will checkmate the wise- 
heads in this prosecution." 

On Wednesday the 16th, a jury of twelve citizens were 
accepted and qualified, and consisted of the following 
named persons : 

John P. Hamlin, restaurant keeper. 
Frederick W. Bbandenbebg, cigar dealer. 



JAMES -1. QARFlELb. 

[Iexky J. Barigiit, retired merchant. 
0HARLE8 J. Stkwakt, merchant. 
Thomas IT. Lahgley, grocer. 
Mich a el Sb beh a n , grocer. 
Samuel B\ IIobbes, plasterer. 
George W. Gates, machinist. 
Iialpii Wormley (colored), laborer. 
W, II. Brawner, commission merchant. 
Thomas Heinlein, iron worker. 
Joseph Prather, commission merchant. 

After the jury were qualified, the District Attorney 
proposed the adoption of the usual course of proceedings 

in such cases of giving the jurors one day to arrange their 
business affairs, and asked the court to adjourn for that 
purpose. It was done. Before the adjournment Mr. 
Scoville disclaimed all complicity in the publication of u 
paper which the prisoner had furnished the reporters, and 
which had appeared in the newspapers, and gave notice 
that nothing of the kind should go forth without bifl con- 
sent, if his vigilance could prevent. These remurk-> made 
the prisoner angry, who rose and in an excited manner 
said : 

"I desire to be heard. I appear here in a dun: 
pacity — first, as a prisoner, and second, as counsel, and I 
want to have the final say in this matter. When I n • 
quest counsel the court can assign them. That paper 
was addressed to the legal profession, and I expect many 
responses to it. I want it understood that I appear here 
in part as my own counsel, and until I request com. 
propose to defend myself." 

The following is a copy of the paper alluded to : 

" To the Legal Profession of America : 

"I am on trial for my life. I formerly practiced law in 
York and Chicago, and I propose to take an active part in n 
fense, as I know more about my inspiration an«i news in tbi rn*c 
than any one, My brother-iu law. George Bcoville. Esq.. w my 



818 THE BIOGRAPHY Of 

only counsel, and I hereby appeal to the 1> g:il profession in Amer- 
ica for aid. I expect to have money shortly, so I can pay them. 
I shall get it partly from the settlement of an old matter in New 
York, and partly from the sale of my book, ami partly from pub- 
lic contributions to my defense. My defense was published in the 
New York Herald on October 6, and in my speech published Nov. 
15 (yesterday). Auy well-known lawyer of criminal capacity, 
desiring to assist in my defense, will please telegraph without de- 
lay to George Scoville, Washington, D. C. If, for any reason, an 
application be refused, the same will be withheld from the public 

" Cuakles Guiteac. 
" In Court, Washington, D. C, Nov. 16, 1881." 

On the morning of November 17, the District Attorney 
opened the case for the Government, Judge Porter and 
Mr. Davidge of Washington, being associated with him 
as counsel for the prosecution. Guiteau had already cre- 
ated a lively scene in court. An immense crowd were 
present. As soon as his hand-cuffs were removed, the 
prisoner began nervously to write, scarcely noticing his 
brother and sister, who sat beside him. Mr. Scoville 
briefly explained the seeming disagreement between him- 
self and Mr. Robinson at the beginning, and declared 
that they were now working harmoniously in the case. 
At this announcement the prisoner took fire, and spring- 
ing to his feet, his eyes flashing with indignation, and 
with violent gestures, he exclaimed : 

" May it please the Court, I object to Mr. Robinson 
appearing in this case." 

"Take your seat, prisoner," said the Court. " I wish 
you to understand distinctly that your labors as counsel in 
this case, as you claim to be, shall be confined to consult- 
ation with the associate counsel in the case. If you diso- 
bey," he continued, as the prisoner jumped to his feet, 
and began another wild speech, " the court will be under 
the necessity of ordering your removal from the court- 
room, and the proceeding with the trial in your absence." 

" Your Honor," retortod the prisoner, " said I could \ 
be heard, and I have a speech." ^< 



JAMES A. GARFIELD. 819 

" You cannot be heard till the close of the case," re- 
plied the judge. 

The prisoner, trembling with excitement, and throw- 
ing bis arms wildly about, exclaimed : " I desire to be 
heard throughout the case. Your Honor has no right to 
cut me off ; and I urn going to make a noise to the coun- 
try about it. When I want counsel I will notify your 
Honor." 

" Counsel have been assigned you, and you must keep 
quiet," said the Court, calmly but sternly. 

Meanwhile the deputy marshals were endeavoring to 
press Guiteau into his seat, when the struggling prisoner 
cried out : 

" The law is that when a man wants counsel they are 
assigned to him. If your honor does not coincide with 
me, I will make a noise to the country about it. The 
oountry is broader than this court is." 

" Keep quiet now," said the Judge, "and let us have 
no more discussion." But the prisoner was irrepressible. 
His friends could not restrain his tongue. He abused 
Robinson, and just as the District Attorney was about to 
open the case, he exclaimed, in great excitement : 

" I come here in the honorable capacity of being the 
agent of Deity on this occasion and I propose to appear 
as such. I don't come on my hands and knees, and that is 
all about it." 

The District Attorney opened the case in a speech of 
considerable length, in which he showed by letters written 
by the prisoner in which he applied for high offices, his 
inordinate egotism, vanity, self-esteem and malignant 
spirit. Guiteau sought first to be appointed Minister to 
Austria ; then Consul at Paris, urging the righteousness 
of his claim because of his unbounded influence in pro- 
curing the election of Garfield to the Presidency. He 
teased the President and the Secretary of State with letters 
and personal applications until he became intolerable, 
when Mr. Blaine, in a curt letter, dismissed him. This, 
and the refusal of the President to give him an office, 



?: TE~ RAPHY OF 

cd his malice, and or forty days be- 

fore he made ^rfield, he 

. following fcettei :o him, marked ,, 'pr: 

"Ge>"XRai Gabfisld: I t been :• ying to be your Eri 
I do r:: kno ■ •s'hether jou appreciate it or cot ; -but I am moved 
to call your attention to the remarka": M Blaine 

::ced. Accorr _ ...icago, 

E 

i get 1 I ." - "■* that 

Mr. BbuiM is i 
- 

with you. 

:t-^.t 

Him letter indicated the r.:::^ ; which prompted the 

cr.r.: larkrj hinted fttinl .:.::.-- 

POfdLa were not heede: uid :ae Republican 

rjr:v would "come to grief. " The wicked :r.:eiv.:n was 

made -: by the following d on the 1 

June IS, a fc: B commission of the 

" I intended to remove the F . ! m : a i n - 

the depot, l- be took the cars fcr L . r Branc 

Id looked m Bun, and clung so tenderly :: the 
Preeidi: - mn, that rr.y - rd me to part the n 

.fed tot.. .lone. I: will be no m Mr.-, 

'.d to part with berlraabi nd ...- w»y, Hi u bj 
ale to go at anv time, u 

•■ C G 

r was q_ : :f Uifl tin : the 

eion II chill called as the first witness for the ;. 

me comm. 
:-53es of : ^lled, 

hl Indo 
not denied, 

A: the : ! morning of the 18tb, 



JAM m 

Mr. Scovilli 

anth 

I 
Bercc a: 

". * (] 
Be u do i.v 

talent in this ! I am ?■ 

is go:: B ' 

suppress him, 
ad your own 

sailed M r. 5 

" 5 afi- 

dence in you: 
first- 
want 
judg' 
in banc will ; 

The court calmly r .'.had beon done 

several o* I .Suu# o:. 

count of tho disorder!] 

" I- 
the table with hid hits and . 
* * If I am convict- 
give me a new trii 

•• We w ill !. 

" I 
have had i. >wn. 

me 
during t 10 publi 

Judg 
liber. 

.. 
undignified proceeding 
■ 



THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

fense could only plead insanity of the prisoner, as a 
ground for asking his acquittal by the jury, and it was 
good policy to allow him to invalidate that plea by over- 
acting the part, of a maniac, for it was evident from tho 
outset that there was "method in his madness."' Besides, 
the prisoner was a counsel in the case, and he had rights 
to be respected; and it was evidently good policy to give 
him such license that he could not successfully apply for 
a new trial on the ground of unfairness or illegality of 
treatment. 

As the evidence produced in court revealed the un- 
desirable character of Guiteau, the public indignation 
became more and more intense, and threats against his 
life were uttered by excitable persons. On the afternoon 
of Saturday, the 19th, while the prisoner was on his way 
back to the jail, an unknown man, mounted on a sorrel 
horse, rode up to the van in which the assassin was con- 
fined, shot at him with a pistol through an upper panel 
of the vehicle, and rode away so rapidly that he escaped. 
Afterward a man named William W. Jones was arrested 
and indicted on a charge of attempting to kill Guiteau, 
and was held in prison for trial. The ball cut a hole in the 
sleeve of Guiteau's coat, and slightly grazed his arm, abrad- 
ing the skin. To a reporter who visited him in. jail that 
evening, Guiteau said : "Say in your paper the Lord will 
not allow me to be shot." But he requested the guard of 
the van to be strengthened. 

The evidence for the prosecution having been com- 
pleted on Saturday, the 19th, the defense of Guiteau began 
on Monday, the 21st. A serious misunderstanding having 
occurred between Mr. Scoville and Mr. Robinson, the latter. 
at the opening of the court, requested and obtained leave to 
retire from the case, and he was honorably discharged, 
with the thanks of Judge Cox. Mr. .Scoville said he did 
not anticipate being entirely without assistance, as he was 
negotiating with a gentleman from Chicago. The pris- 
oner broke in : " My defense here is that it is the Deity'3 



JAMBS a 

act, not mine, and I 
Ho has taken 
The I > i ~ 1 1 . 

• if the testimonj • 

<»f the Presidi tit's wouu 

d, Mr. S 

heard in his ow u 

The boon wa I 

rofu- ml up w bile 

ing the trial, to the corre< I 
for the past few days, and thai 
would go on the stand 
ined. 

Mr. Scoville then 
ner, with n<> attempt 
flections in advance u] 
might employ, bj wai n 
led by them, : 
while his expert •■■■ 

testimony should favor the prisoner, tl 
tracis< 

As the insanity of thi 
pica of the d< 
nine Bketch of different 

O 

OU8 man. 

acter a bearing npon the H kT * • 

brief and into I b t.f thi ' 

are of Huguenot desct nt, 

had been or w 

prisoner's lifi 

shown thai his birth • 

ill, which sickn 

her head. His lif< 

rncy to religious man 

ciicv in the various • 

w-.rK 

termpted him 



836 2 HE BIOGRAPHY OF 

times charging him with lying, repeating the charge oyer 
and over. To these charges and interruptions Mr. Scoville 
paid no attention, which indifference some persons con- 
strued as collusion with the prisoner in his simulated in- 
sanity. 

Mr. Scoville finished his opening address for the de- 
fense on November 23d, and then introduced his first 
witness, a Congregational clergyman from Illinois, who 
said that he thought Guiteau's mind was not so much de- 
ranged as very badly arranged. There were many other 
witnesses introduced from various parts of the country. 

Up to this time the crowd of spectators (a large pro- 
portion of them women), had been in the habit of giving 
tokens of approbation or disapprobation of the proceed- 
ings, sometimes applauding the impertinent interjections 
of the assassin. On the morning of the 25th, Judge Cox 
gave notice that any further exhibition of such demon- 
strations would be followed by an immediate clearing of 
the court-room. This unseemly conduct now ceased. The 
prisoner was threatened with the application of a gag if 
ho did not restrain his tongue, but this threat was of little 
avail, for he persisted in his abrupt comments on the 
testimony and in fiat contradictions of the witnesses. 

At this point, Charles II. Reed, a lawyer of Chicago, 
and once State's Attorney, was solicited to become Mr. 
Scoville's associate counsel in the case. He complied with 
the request soon afterwards. On the 27th General Logan 
was called for the defense. He testified to Guiteau's per- 
sistence in soliciting his aid in procuring for the prisoner 
the Paris Consulship, and that his personal appearance 
and conduct were indications of partial insanity. Mrs. 
Scoville (Guiteau's sister), also testified to several acts of 
Guiteau which indicated unsoundness of mind. 

No testimony as to Guiteau's menial irregularities, Ins 

hallucinations and his aberrations of mind yet given had 

sufficient to establish a solid plea for insanity, when, 

at the close of Mrs. Scoville's testimony on the 28th, her 

brother, J. W. Guiteau of Boston, was called to the wit 



JAMWA A 9AMFIM 

^tund by th- 

damaged the insanitj i brim I 

the piisoner*! Life which iiu 

man • her than 

a conversation he had with hi 

Bxpreased ;i I 

shoot the Pn 

thai beli( !*• 

honest and sincere in •:>«! no* 

to be insane. He admits 

had, on several u 

brother had hem inspired bj I and do' 

in committing the orii choaen I 

by the devil, and was ander demoniai infl u d 

he now believed him to b. 

This witness, in n -lion whu 

hy his brother being \ 
plained the theological notioni ■ 
prisoner, which comprehended 
in the world, one of | 

the other of the Devil; thai man gbt 

follow whichever he 

time in his life, must bav< 1 notion- 

willfulness, bia Btubbornn< 
Satan to gam gush a < 
the power of the Evil One. 'I 
he based his opinion I ^aa mora. 

eible to God, but perhs] -iible a*, 

human or legal : • ° n « i * nJ# H*** *- 

Here the prisoner broke ii 

"You have that thinj 

•• Perhapa 1 hav( • «*♦ 

or posit 

you to tas 

Toward the I 
called to the stand 
written. He did 
lowing he was agi M » tAuJ anJ WM 



828 THE BIOGRAPHY OP 

subjected to a searching examination and crose-exami- 
nation for the space of three days. His character and career 
were laid open to public view. lie was questioned as to the 
notions of the Oneida Community, among whom he spent 
his early years, concerning inspiration in general and of 
the special inspiration of individuals to do certain things; 
what was his own view on the subject of inspiration; as to 
his way of life generally ; as to his political status, offico- 
seeking and personal aspirations; as to his first concep- 
tion of the idea of murdering the President, and of its ne- 
cessity ; of his preparation for the deed, its executiou, 
and the state of his mind afterwards. 

It came out that he was in accord with the Oneida 
Community on the subject of the special inspiration of 
individuals to do certain things which they believed ; 
that he had been loose, theoretically and practically, in 
his ideas of honesty in behavior toward his fellow-men ; 
that he had aspired to high public honors, but had never 
been elected to an office, but that he had believed, and he 
still believed, that he would some day be President of the 
United States ; that he had conceived the idea of " re- 
moving " the president by assassination before he wrote 
the threatening letter to him on May 23, given in preced- 
ing pages ; that from that time until he committed the 
terrible crime he was under " constant pressure, pressure, 
pressure of inspiration," to do it, and that he earnestly 
resisted it, and that after the deed was done, and he was 
in jail, he felt happy. He told, in sickening detail, how 
for days he had sought an opportunity to shoot the Pres- 
ident ; and when asked whether, when he pointed the 
pistol at General Garfield, he believed that it was God and 
not Guiteau who pulled the trigger, the wretched pris- 
oner said : 

" I was simply executing the Divine will. He used 
me as his agent in pulling the trigger. I had no option 
in the matter. I would have done it if I had been sure of 
being shot dead the next moment. The pressure [of in- 



JAMES i. GARFIELD 

spiration] was so enormouB I could 
that down.*' 

The prisoner said that when he was lodged in 
mind became perfectly at ease, and he nrai ha] 
conflict with the " pressure of inspirati< 
had done his dutj as an agent of D 
Bciousness thai the Deity would tak< ll<- 

admitted that he i 

on the second coming of Christ, which had 
would now have an enormous and ] >i< >ti * 
of the notoriety which his hor] 

On December 5, the defense inti 
of medical experts. Dr. Kiernan, ] 
Review," of Chicago, was fii 
Bprang to his feet and -aid ; 

•' Before any . •■■. mony b< i 

a short speech. The very point on which 1 
uerts to pass upon is tfa 
will do it again. When n man claim 
to do an illegal act from a power beyond I h lm 

cannot recall, where his moral a 
these experts to say whether that is sanit; 

Mr. Scoville put this hypothet 
Kiernan : " Assuming it t< 
hereditary taint, of in- 
that at the 

without simulation ; that dui ii . 
ing with the I 

persons in various places had 
that in June, L8»l, 
he v, Kill th< 

immediately after the 
lieved by the perfo 
sane or insane at the time of tl 

Dr. Kiernan answi -an«— 

no doubt of 

This witness, aftei 
school which advocat- - 



»ot THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

and that he did not believe in a state of future existence 
for man. testified that inequality in the two sides of a 
head was an evidence of hereditary insanity. 

"That fits my case exactly/' said the prisoner. •• One 
side of my head is larger than the other. Doctors exam- 
ined me the other night." 

The witness said that perhaps one quarter of all c 
of insanity that had come under his observation, were 
caused by this inequality of the two sides of the head. In 
answer to the question, What is the proportion of insane 
people to the sane, in the world ? the witness continued : 

" Probably of twenty-five persons in ordinary life — 
business people — five are insane and sooner or later they 
become inmates of an insane asylum ; the proportion is 
greater among idle people ;" to which the questioner 
(Judge Davidge) replied : "That is an encouraging pros- 
pect for us all." 

"That would take you in, Judge," said the prisoner. 

Dr. Charles Ii. Nichols, of the Bloomingdale Asylum 
for the Insane at New York, in reply to the hypothetical 
question put to Dr. Kiernan, answered, 

" Taking that hypothetical question to be true, I 
should think the person described in it was insane." 

To the same hypothetical question a similar answer 
was given by Doctors Foster, Goldy, McBride, ('banning 
and Fisher, all of them connected with asylums for the 
insane or institutions for the treatment of mental diseases. 
After the depositions of a few more witnesseSj the counsel 
for the prisoner announced that the testimony for the de- 
fense was closed, excepting that of Dr. Spitzka of New 
York, for whom he had telegraphed. 

The government opened rebutting testimony on the 
morningof December 7. The family physician of Guiteau's 
father said he had never discovered the slightest trace of 
insanity in him or any of his family, his peculiar religious' 
views, in his opinion, not being incompatible with his 
soundness of mind. Several leading citizens of Freeport, 
Illinois (the home of the Guiteau's), intimately acquaint- 



m 

ed with the family . 
also | 

teau family, • 
insanity in others of tfa 

. 

tie who w in, fur i\ 

recriminal which tin 

fensirely parti 
l>r. Sj., 

■ ' 
and who bad at he 

had examined the prisoner in jail, .. 
ion that In 1 n 
lectually ami 
ami consequent!) 

rts took i :.<!. 

■ the middle 

Bed that, (iur 
cago and New V 
insanity in him. <>n tin 
Loring, of W 
New York, j 
favor of the Banity of the | 
court, that he was not 
a month before, ami at the i 
that is to say, ho was undi 
of God " to do the deed. In i 
ration. Dr. MacDona 
testified that, as I 
than 6, 

ml thai 

" inspired/' a I 
thing enl 
conrsi 

of " moral in 
believe in it : that, in fa 
been playing a part in I 
that he on the 



834 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

President. Other experts who were called agreed in 
opinion with Dr. MacDonald. 

At near the close of December, the defense had a 
plaster cast of G-uiteau's head made by Clark Mills, the 
sculptor, for the purpose of giving support to the theory 
of Dr. Kiernan, that irregularity in the two sides of a 
head was a cause and an outward indication of hereditary 
insanity, but it settled no question. 

At this time the conduct of the prisoner in court had 
become so intolerable that the judge remanded him to 
the dock, but he was still irrepressible. He boasted that 
he would " laugh the case out of court," and proceeded 
to put his boast into execution by reading the following- 
telegram, which he pretended he had received the night 
before : 

" All Boston sympathizes with you. You ought to be Preti 
dent. " A Host ok Admirers." 

The evidence was all in and closed on January 4, when 
it was announced that after some law points had been 
disposed of, the arguments of counsel on the merits of the 
case would be begun. These points were finally disposed 
of on January 10 (1882), and two days afterward Mr. 
Davidge opened the plea for the Government or the 
prosecution. On the 14th, Mr. Reed began a plea in favor 
of the claim of insanity on the part of the prisoner. Gui- 
teau asked leave to speak in his own defense, but the 
court, wearied with his abusive " speeches,'' refused ; 
whereupon the prisoner, whose address he had written 
out, furnished a copy of it for the Associated Press for 
publication'. It appeared in the morning papers through- 
out the country on January lb'. It was a long and char- 
acteristie document, containing nothing new excepting 
copies of numerous letters which he pretended he had re- 
ceived, filled with words of praise and sympathy. 

Mr. Scoville followed Mr. Reed on the 17th, and con- 
cluded hi.-, speech on the 20th. On the 23d, Judge 



jAMKti a OARjrrai 



Porter, for the Government, began his u 

jury, and concluded it on the afternoon of the 26tb, * 

Judge Cox delivered his charge to the jury. It wm ■ 

culm, impartial aud lucid review of thi 

hour was occupied in the reading of it. During \U d 

ery tho prisoner interrupted tho judge only I 

dued tones. His voice had not the old defiant rii)^\ 

he seemed to be impressed with a sense of impending 

peril. 

While Judge Cox wns reading, the twilight of * i 
ter's evening, gray and deepening, filled tl. i oom. 

A lamp was brought for the use of the judge and t! 
ficial reporters, for there wore no £:i* fixtures in the I 
Tho prisoner became shrouded in almost darkness which 
seemed portentous of his doom s<»> >n I nouncod. 

The .shadows of his guards standing about him 
the gloom in which he was nearly hidden f Hi 

was manacled, thoughtful and quiet 

At five o'clock the jurors retired to 
liberate on a verdict, The prisonei 
stared into the face of each a- he p r him, « 

deep, anxious, inquiring gaze. After thej had 
room Guiteau asked to be taken t<. th< 
shal, where, during the trial, he had taken hia dil 
His request was granted, and he walked out thi 
curious, inquiring crowd. Soon afterwards the judge 
ordered a recess of half an hour. 

In the marshal's room Guit< 
" Will they acquit me?" he anxiously inquin 
captain of his guard. 1 • could I 

they disagree ':" he as anxiously inquire I 
guards. He could not tell. The | 
long in suspense, Th 
hour later, was one to be Ion- remember 
of it. Darkness brooded in the dien 
only two oil lamp* 
A crowd of fully four hundred 
almost indistinguishable mass, Presently tlm 



83$ THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

candles were lighted at points in the room distant from 
each ot-her, and a few were furnished for the reporters' 
tables. Strange, ghostly shadows tapestried the grim 
walls in flitting masses. The cold wave, just surging 
from the far northwest, made the room exceedingly chilly, 
and the wearied spectators were shivering with cold and 
excitement when silence was commanded by the proper 
officer, and the judgo appoared and took his scat on the 
bench. The hu6h of the portals of death now prevailed, 
broken only by the solemn tread of the prisoner and his 
guards as they entered the room. Guiteau, pale, shiver- 
ing, subdued, dropped into his chair in the dock, and 
gazed anxiously at the seats soon to be filled with the 
arbiters of his fate. 

Just fifty minutes after the jury retired from the court 
room, they returned and took their seats. The prisoner, 
as he sank back trembling in a corner of the dock, tried 
to read the- verdict in the faces of the twelve jurors, but 
the light was so dim he could scarcely observe their fea- 
tures. The names of the jurymen were called by the 
gray-haired crier, when the clerk of the court inquired ; 

"Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a 
verdict ?" 

"We have," responded the foreman. 

" What say you gentlemen," continued the clerk ; " is 
the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty ?" 

The foreman slowly arose, and in a low clear voice, that 
could be heard in every part of the silent room, answered : 

" Guilty as indicted." 

Pent up feelings of applause struggled for expression 
all over the room, and as it was breaking out, silence was 
commanded and secured. As soon as order was restored 
the clerk said to the jury : 

" Your foreman says, 'guilty as indicted,' so say all 
of you ?" 

" We do," they all responded. 

Mr. Scovillo instantly demanded a poll of the jury, 
when each juror was called by name and answered in the 



7. A xji 

affirmatn nulled and tho an- 

swer giv< 
Bhrieked — 

upon the thai jur. 

y<ui forget it !" 

Mr. Sco> : " 
desir 

counsel, under the law and 1 1 

that, if I anythii wto 

would thank tl t in licate 

him. Ju 
opportunity ; thai 
print the next day, and be would I • 
allowed by law within which t<> 81e 1. . and 

that be would be entitled to f 

move an arrest of judgment. When the ju 1 hii 

remarks, the 

•• (. 1 will aveng< I 

Ju ;ry and 

tlemen of the jury : I cann 
the manner in v 
You have richly D -, )C than!, 

and I feel assured you will tak< 
tho approval of your 
men of the jury, Id: .." 

With this announcement, the court ' 
journed, and bo this rem 
President Garfield was conclude 

The verdict of the jur . 
approval. The pi 

ficd that the 
• nly acting a part in i 
that mental conditioi 
patient and disgusted by h 
inc: 1 toward all wl 

him, and his. frcq 
were undoubtedly 
lip was Bane and 



840 THE BIOGRAPHY OF 

need not have been absent from the court-room five min- 
utes in agreeing upon their verdict. Their only motive 
for remaining out nearly an hour was to avoid the appear- 
ance of unseemly haste. The verdict was regarded every- 
where as an honest and most important vindication of 
natural justice and as a promise of protection against a 
similar outrage in the future. The Nqw York Times 
justly remarked : 

"Any other conclusion of the trial upon which public 
attention has been concentrated for more than ten weeks 
would have been a shock to the general feeling that justice 
demands a swift retribution for crimes of such enormity. 
It would have shaken popular faith in the efficacy, of the 
jury system as a means of insuring the execution of justice 
against criminals of the most atrocious type, and weak- 
ened the safeguards of life on which the stability of human 
institutions so largely depends. It would have given the 
enemies of free government a new argument against its 
power to vindicate its authority from the attacks of law- 
less citizens. The general sense of the people that justice 
should be done in this case as promptly as was compatible 
with the due observance of the forms and requirements of 
law has not prevented Ouiteau from receiving a fair and im- 
partial trial. He has been allowed the widest liberty, verg- 
ing closely upon unrestrained license of conduct, in the 
court-room ; he has had the most liberal construction that 
the law bearing upon his case would permit, his counsel 
have done everything in his behalf which their ingenuity 
and ability could compass, and he has had a full hearing 
before a jury of uncommon intelligence and fairness." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 785 727 3 



